


Ars Moriendi

by lecherysweet



Series: The Art of Dying Well [1]
Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, Drama, Drama & Romance, Explicit Language, F/M, Family Drama, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Happy Ending, Implied Choi Saeran/Kim Yoosung, Implied Sexual Content, Lots of Spoilers Everywhere, Major Illness, Mental Health Issues, Mild Sexual Content, Past Rika/V | Kim Jihyun, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Situations, Slice of Life, Spoilers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, cursing, underaged drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2019-10-07 14:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 152,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17367518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lecherysweet/pseuds/lecherysweet
Summary: Love has a way of wiggling itself under the skin, beneath the muscles, between the bones. It settles itself somewhere you wouldn't expect - wrapped around the intestines to make your stomach ache when they're hurt, beneath the diaphragm to make you short of breath when you're nervous, spread to the spine, to shoot pain to your head when they ruin your day, to spread tingles down every nerve when they say the exactly the right thing in exactly the right way.Nothing aches, nothing endures, nothing protects quite like love.Jumin knows love intimately, as well as he knows her, and they've been friends for their entire lives. If only his Father would stop getting in the way...[AU Jumin fell in love with a childhood friend, and the RFA was their highschool band]





	1. Kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

> **[Carpe Diem](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18459425/chapters/43733219)** is the nsfw accompaniment of this fic. 
> 
> **[Ars Moriendi Youtube Playlist:](https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAKenDvTVa4bXupDbzR2cggHD0pN0YmR_)** Here is a playlist of the music I'm listening to while I write! I will keep this updated with music.
> 
>  _I wrote all the songs myself unless otherwise noted._ I will note if a particular song inspired it. The songs are supposed to be written by the MC, as she is a songwriter.
> 
> At the beginning of each chapter there is a vignette of a memory from the RFA's past. They are not in order: the memory is chosen to thematically tie into the chapter. This memory will be separated by a horizontal line from the rest of the chapter, notifying the reader of the extreme skip in time.

[Two years prior...]

“What’s all this?”

Vivere handed Rika a small bag, standing with her in the airport. She glanced up at the monitor that listed the times for departure. They had ten minutes before Rika had to leave so she could get through security and make it to the terminal on time.

“You know, some stuff, just in case,” Viv shrugged. “I didn’t tell anyone, you know? I just uh, opened these accounts under my name. You probably don’t need it, but…”

“Thank you.”

“The cell phone has unlimited everything- internet, calling, texting, there’s music subscription on there too, and the headphones that came with it are in the box but I know you have your own headphones I figured I should keep everything that came with it in tact… and I picked out a phone case I thought you’d like… and that’s a black credit card without a credit limit.”

“I see,” Rika giggled, eyes crinkling along the edges. “You’re giving me an credit card with an unlimited charge in your name for what reason now?”

Another shrug. “You know, if you ever get in trouble for any reason, you’ll always have a way out. I doubt you’d ever charge anything on there that I couldn’t afford or something. And if I couldn’t, you know Jumin would help. I’ll only tell him about this whole arrangement if I need help getting you out of some trouble you’re in or something, so — just don’t worry, alright? I just want you to be ok.”

“You’re not going to try to stop me?” Rika asked curiously, tucking both items into her purse.

“No. You have to do what’s best for you, Rika. You need something… I just want you to be happy, and I’d do anything to make sure you get where you need to be, even if that means not seeing you for a while.” Vivere smiled. “I know we’ll see each other again.”

“Thanks for being my friend, Sujin.”

Rika graced her with a gentle smile, the sort of smile Vivere had missed for the last two years. Viv tried to take a snapshot of it in her mind so that she’d never forget. They wrapped each other up in their arms for a long moment, but the electric beeping from an overhead speaker blared to mark the time.

“And this last thing?” Rika asked as they started to make their way to the security line, a piece of paper between her fingers.

 

_{kaleidoscope}_

_chips along the edges that cut_  
_hidden among the clarity_  
_at some angles it’s hard to see_  
_cracks along the vast transparency_  
_teeth that catch in the crevices_  
_break both glass and enamel_  
_revealing white beneath the tarnish_  
_from coffee leaking through the lines_  
_cracks that hide in plain sight_

 _through the looking glass_  
_spreading the lies of colored shards_  
_the ears can hear what the eyes ignore_  
_the broken colors of a looking glass_

 _collecting dust in a china cabinet_  
_the sun refracts in a thousand colors_  
_each day duller than the last_  
_saved from a hand’s mistakes behind_  
_doors locked up tight and the key missing_  
_as the clarity begins to cloud_  
_the honesty of memory ends_  
_to resemble stories of old instead of_  
_the smile of the sunlight’s rays spread_  
_through the cracks in clear glass_

 _through the looking glass_  
_spreading the lies of colored shards_  
_the ear can hear what the eyes ignore_  
_the broken colors of a looking glass_

 

“Just an unfinished song.” Viv smiled, shrugging one shoulder. “The next time we meet I’m sure you’ll have added something to it. You know… because that’s what we do.”

Rika laughed. It sounded like the bells of a wind chime, uncapturable, unescapable, and certainly what it meant was more important than what it did. “Of course.”

 

* * *

 

 

[Present Day...]

  

The cashier looked at her with surprise, apparently recognizing her face. Viv hated when people realized who she was but, really, there was nothing she could do to avoid it. All she could do is make sure she didn’t act in a manner that tarnished her family’s reputation _too_ much. Honestly, it’d only been a few hours since she was last at this food stall on the corner of the street her that condo is located. She was just glad that the person working there had changed shifts.

“What’s up?” She greeted the older man probably more informally than she should, tilting her head cutely with a smile. He’d been staring after all.

“Ah-h-h Miss Park I didn’t mean to offend you!” He quickly bowed his head several times.

Her head shook. They always assume she’s offended, no matter how genuine the smile. She wondered why that was, but human reactions were only human for being predictably unreasonable. “Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m not a big deal. May I order three fish?”

“Vivere,” she heard her name and suppressed making a gross sound. Now she wasn’t going to be able to enjoy her bread.

“Just one moment, Miss,” said the frantic street food stall owner. Did he see the irritation on her face?

“No, take your time, I’m not upset with you or anything, don’t worry.” She flashed another smile that she hoped didn’t look as fake as it felt.  

“You’re going to gain weight eating that much junk food,” the deep voice scolded. She ignored him.

“Mr. Han, Afternoon,” the bread vendor bowed to the man standing behind her. “It’s a-“

“Don’t bother being so polite to him, Mister. He’s the one who should be being polite to you,” she huffed, still refusing to turn around.

Jumin cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, Sir. You must have a good product if my friend here frequents your establishment so often.” 

“Um! – thank you!” the vendor stammered as he handed over the bag. Viv immediately shoved the head of the fish-shaped bread in her mouth, giving the man a small bow of thanks.

A hand appeared from behind her and extended over her shoulder, handing over a bill that was much too large for what she’d bought. When it had been lifted from his hand, it waved dismissively. “Please keep the change. Have a good evening.”  

That time she did make a disgusted sound around a mouthful of bread, not really appreciating him paying for her but not wanting to make a scene by causing one of their usual fights. Instead she dodged his hand when he attempted to lay it on her shoulder and lifted her free hand in a vulgar gesture as she walked past him back towards her condo.

He laughed and followed her.  

“Is that going to be your dinner for today, Viv?”

Her head shook. It was a lie. It was totally going to be her dinner, and her midnight snack. She was on a fish-shaped bread craving binge. It’d pass in a couple days, but in the meantime, it was going to be her breakfast, lunch, and dinner until she was sick of the stuff.

“That’s good. You should be having regular meals other than pastries.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Then I will arrange for my chef to make dinner for the both of us tonight.”

Head shaking, ‘no’, she turned to look at him, brow creasing, and pointed an improper pointer finger at his chest and shook her head no a second time just in case he wasn’t paying attention. Then she attempted to swallow, the amount of bread she’d stuffed her mouth with having sucked up the moisture in her mouth and – well, it was stuck there. She watched his eyebrows lift. It was that incredulous face he so often gave her when he’d made time to see her. Viv didn’t remember making any sort of arrangement to hang out. Had they? She’d been so busy lately that she couldn’t keep track.

Vivere fished her phone out of the deep pockets of her sweat pants and opened up her calendar to make sure she hadn’t promised to do something with him.

“Don’t worry, you didn’t forget.” His hand covered her phone, drawing her attention back up to him. “I hit a wall with work and decided I needed the break.”

She swallowed, finally, though her mouth was still thick with red bean paste. “So you came to see me? Couldn’t you have texted me first?” The half of the bread she wouldn’t be able to finish was placed into the bag with the other two fish and the bag carefully folded up.

Jumin flashed a wry smile down towards her. “You’re still working,” he stated after a moment. “It’s getting late, you’ll make yourself sick.”

He didn’t need confirmation so she didn’t bother giving him any, she was just as busy with work as he was. “I have a couple songs that are hitting a deadline soon, and I’m trying to free up my weekend to go see Dad.”

“Ah.”

He kept walking beside her, but said nothing after that, casting his eyes somewhere else. Viv exhaled heavily, but silently enough that it wasn’t really a sigh he’d hear and ask about. It felt like there was a weight on her chest when she tried to breathe. Suddenly, she had the urge to stuff the bread back in her mouth just so that she’d have a reason to not talk anymore, but they came up to the resident’s door to her building a lot quicker than she’d expected. She shoved her hand into her other pocket to take out her keys and pressed the tear drop shaped fob to the automated lock.

Jumin paused.

Viv rolled her eyes dramatically enough that he’d see it, then forced herself to half-smile up at him. “Are you coming in or what?”

His own half-smile mirrored hers, just as forced but equal with relief. “For a few minutes, then.”

“Cool.”  

The elevator took a while to get to the bottom floor, and then a while to get up to her condo. She wondered if it was having issues. Maybe she should call maintenance? It broke down last month and she had to climb the stair to the 7th floor. That was an exhausting day. Viv wasn’t so sure she had the energy to do that today. The doors opened and a young woman that looked about her own age that she hadn’t met before stepped out. She sort of looked like an idol with her magenta hair, thin waist, and golden brown eyes. Did she recently move in or was she visiting someone? It wasn’t really Viv’s business, but she turned around to watch her cast a glance up to Jumin quickly and keep walking.

Too bad Viv didn’t have a business card on her.

Once inside her condo, they shook their shoes off at the door and Viv moved automatically to the kitchen, leaving Jumin to get situated. Her fish-shaped bread was tucked into the corner of her counter until it could cool off and she could put it in the fridge. Then she moved to her electric kettle, flicking the switch on to boil the several cups of water still there from before she left.

She hear the slap of his designated slippers against the floor that stopped when he took a seat, presumably.

“What do you want for dinner?” she asked, drifting about her kitchen, looking through her fridge and cabinets.

“You’re going to cook?”

“That a problem?” She turned to look at him, her brow lifting to a peak. “You’ve had my cooking before.”

“I certainly hope you’ve improved.”

Viv stuck out her tongue. “You can leave if you want.”

“No, I’d rather evaluate your culinary skills. I can call my chef later if you leave me unsatisfied.”

“I’m not a chef.”

“Oh, I know.” He smirked and she knew it for what it was – bait. She didn’t take it.

“Tea?”

“Black.”

A simple nod once, and she shuffled over to the cabinet that she kept her teas and coffee, making sure to choose a higher quality tea than she’d normally drink since she had a guest. He was a much pickier shit than she was, but then again she couldn’t blame him. She was the same way when it came to chocolate. She took down two raku tea cups, but prepared one, since she was going to start cooking in a moment and she didn’t want to over brew her tea. In a small strainer she measured loose tea to steep in the hot water, she covered it with a towel and collected a sugar dish, assembled together on a tray.

He'd sat on a stool at the island in the middle of her kitchen.

Once she’d joined him for the moment, hand cupping his chin and elbow on the counter, he made small motion with his free hand.

“I’ll have mine once I’m finished prepping,” she answered the question he seemed to be asking.

“It would be rude of me to partake without my hostess.” His left eye narrowed at her, making him look displeased.

“Ok, then.” Viv didn’t feel like protesting as it would take too much of her limited energy. She fetched her own cup from the adjacent counter, filled a strainer with tea and filled the cup with water, bringing it with her to the kitchen island and sitting across it from him. “I feel like there’s more to why you sought me out today.”

Watching her remove the towel from his cup and wait for the tea leaves to drain when she rose the strainer from the cup, he curled his fingers over his mouth. A breath expelled that was heavier than a sigh. “There is much happening between myself and Father at the moment. It’s not something I want to bother you with.”

“Of course you do,” she smiled in spite of him, a laugh that was more noisy puffs of air than sound through her lips. “I bet I can guess. He’s pestering you about finding a wife again?”

“Am I that easy to read?”

She lifted the strainer from her own cup, preferring to brew this specific tea lighter for herself than Jumin preferred it. The tips of his fingers dropped two sugar cubes into her cup and one into his own while she set aside the two strainers on a small plate. “No, it’s just the only thing he bothers you about these days, that’s all. My dad’s been the same way.”

“Has he?” He sounded surprised. “I wasn’t expecting that. I thought he was more concerned about Ars Moriendi.”

“Yeah, well, at the end of the day, AM is Han’s responsibility. Besides, exit strategy and all that has been in the works for about a year. Since he was diagnosed.”

“Right. Kenji is supposed to step up as Head of Production, is he not?”

Viv nodded.

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“Why would it? Kenji has been working for AM for over a decade. I wouldn’t expect to take over the director’s seat after being in production for four years.”

He took a sip of his tea, swallowing slowly, and Viv mimicked him, taking the opportunity of his silence to gather her own thoughts. Her father wasn’t really happy about the selection for the new head of production, which was pretty much the top position in the entirety of Ars Moriendi – especially because of the amount of work he’d invested training Viv since she returned to Korea after she finished college. She was frustrated that he would take away someone else’s hard work and achievement simply because he wanted her to ‘take after him.’

“It’s my opinion that you should at least be promoted to an executive position. Head of songwriting, or a senior producer. It would be helpful to have you on Board.”

She shrugged, abandoned her half-finished tea, and took the chicken shrink-wrapped in a marinade plus various vegetables out of the fridge. She knew it was rude but it wasn’t really something she wanted to talk about. It was hard to explain that to Jumin when his mind was always wrapped around C&R and the welfare of its assets. At the end of the day, she knew that Ars Moriendi would be fine without her father and it would definitely be fine with her, but she didn’t know if she could say the same about her father or even herself.

A look of concern accompanied him when he came up to her side and took a knife from one of the drawers to begin chopping vegetables. “You’re tired. You should have just let me call the chef.”

“I just… like cooking, that’s all. Be careful; don’t cut your hand.”

“As much as I enjoy hearing you fret over me, I’m not so inept that I can’t help prepare food.”

He smirked when she rolled her eyes at him, and she couldn’t help but reward the little quip with a smile. The chicken went in the oven, then she thoroughly washed the rice and threw it into the rice cooker.

“You’re unusually decorous today,” he stated, loud in the silence of the large room. It could have sounded like an insult to anyone else, but Viv didn't care. Actually, he was right. “I’m starting to think I came here because you needed the company.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, now, Jumin,” she huffed a soft laugh. “I’m ok.”

“That’s the thing, you’re not,” he grumbled, his eyes still on his hands. “I hate it when you hide things from me.”

This time she did sigh, head shaking. “It’s nothing I haven’t told you before.”

“Then tell me again.” When his head lifted, his expression was stern and his slate gray eyes glinted at her as if daring her to continue like this. A threat, of the most friendly kind. Then his eyes dropped again, allowing her to take a deep breath and center herself.

“I hate being selfish.” Vivere paused, leaning against her counter next to him, watching Jumin slice orange bell peppers into strips. “It’s so meaningless. I don’t want to deal with dad’s bullshit. There’s more important things going on than bickering over who does what when. He’s not going to get better, you know?”

“I know,” he answered, calm, deep, warm. His voice rumbled softly, monotone enough to sound non-judgmental.

She didn’t realize how much she needed it until she heard it.

“Is it horrible to not want to take over as head of production? He’s so intent on me taking the position when I’m in no way qualified for it and he’s willing to use his name and power to pull strings to get me there. But the thing is, I’m perfectly happy on being on the production team. I know at my age it’s a feat in itself to be the lead songwriter on some of the top artists AM has. I want to continue growing as a composer, not be shipped off to administration. I know you’re fine but I’d literally slit my own throat if I had to do paperwork for the next forty years. I know it’s important to him but…”

His motions stopped, and he looked to her, watching her carefully. “I’d never let your talent waste away in administration.”

“That’s reassuring coming from someone barely involved with AM,” she chuckled.

“I may not have direct power over Ars Moriendi, but I am on its Board of Directors. I could petition to make sure you’re not moved somewhere you don’t want to be, and at the end of the day, Father knows you’re a valuable asset in production. He could veto any decision your Father made to prematurely promote you to HP.”

Viv sighed, this sort of work discourse making her brain hurt even more, even though the assurance did help somewhat.

“I think I just want to be with dad when he’s going through all this, but all this drama at work is preventing me from going home.”

“That can be arranged, you know. You can take all the time you need.”

“I know but I want to save that time for when dad is… you know…” she meant near death, when she would have to do things like arrange the funeral and get him to a hospice, or worse. In his state, it’s hard to know how he’d go, but feared it wasn’t going to be peacefully in his sleep. From what she knew, that’s not going to be the case. Jumin nodded. “He has a specific way he wants AM run, and Han trusts him to know what’s right for the production company so he feels like I’m the only one who can carry out his legacy. I just don’t care right now. Right now all I can feel is frustrated.”

She ran a hand through her hair, both of them falling silent, the tension she was feeling twisting up her shoulders.

“Jumin… that’s normal, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

She placed a hand over his to stop him from continuing to chop vegetables, then lifted herself to her toes to press her lips lightly to his cheek. “I’ll finish this, go pick out a wine.”

He nodded once, laying the knife on the board, pausing to take a long look at her, eyes sweeping across her face looking as if he was searching for something. It seemed like he would ask her a question, but instead he moved around her and at last went to the sink to wash his hands before crossing her kitchen to the wine cabinet. Viv sliced onions and carrots to add to the cast iron pan with the peppers, adding broccoli at the last minute so that it retained its crisp. Finely chopped fresh herbs and a bit of salt and pepper.

“What about the Sangiovese?” he asked, turning to look at her with a bottle in his hand.

“That’s is a good idea. That one is should pair well with chicken since it’s not too heavy.”

“I thought you don't like wine?” It was less of a question and more of a tease. 

“Between you and Jiji, I swear I'd be an idiot to not have learned _something_ by now.”

“True.” he opened the bottle, pouring into a glass and bringing it to her to taste. She paused her attention to the food she was stirring in the pan, allowed her chin to be held lightly as he tilted the glass against her lips. “Good?”

“Yeah.”

He wandered off somewhere with the glass in hand, probably to air out the wine, and returned empty-handed. A hand swept under her hair. The tie that was loose from her running her hands through her hair removed and then replaced, now holding the entirety of her waist-length hair back more securely. “Ever consider getting a haircut?”

“You’d hate that and you know it,” she scoffed.

“It doesn’t quite matter how I’d feel about it; it merely seems inconvenient.”

“It is, but I think it suits me so I keep it.”

He made a soft sound of agreement from somewhere behind her, then she felt his presence leave completely.

Viv took the second alone to reflect on the way her body tensed up when he did that, which was weird to her. Probably because they hadn’t been in that sort of close proximity for a while, but it wasn’t as if it was unusual. They’d been friends since they were kids. They’d slept in the same bed, had slumber parties, went to school dances together as friends since Jihyun always had Rika. Even more recently, the four years since she’d graduated college, they’d shown up at each other’s homes drunk at ungodly hours and slept wherever. She shook off the tingle at the nape of her neck. He’d probably just tied the band too tight.

She had to let the food cook, and so she trailed over to her phone and pulled up her music app to put on a classical piece. “Have you heard this? Yo-Yo Ma plays Bach’s cello suite in G major magnificently.” Her hand pressed to her chest as her eyes closed. “What I wouldn’t give to play with him one day.”

“I’m sure it could be arranged,” he laughed.

“I don’t want it to be like that!” she practically hissed. “Besides, when I get the right opportunity I bet I can at least get him to play my music for a soundtrack or something. That’d be enough for me.”

They listened silently to the prelude before she laid down her phone, letting the suite play over her sound system.

“Is it because you don’t think you could match him?” he asked curiously as the movement continued to the Allemande. “You know how absurd that is?”

“No, that’s not it. I just don’t like performing.”

His gaze cast down, then he busied himself with pouring a second glass of wine. Viv was grateful for the lack of response, turning to the stove instead to plate and serve their dinner. When she’d returned some minutes later, the bit of conversation they’d just had seemed to have never happened when she set his plate in front of him.

“Thank you.”

She stopped mid-bite to watch him lift his food to his lips and taste it. One of his eyebrows quirked up before it reached his mouth, and he smirked at her.

“Cute.”

She felt her face blush from her neck to her ears, and felt completely stupid for it. “Fucking eat, Jumin.”

A small snort of amusement at her embarrassment made Viv stare down at her plate when she began to eat, deliberately repressing the urge to watch him take a taste.

He hummed. “Not bad.”

“Asshole.”

She hid her smile behind her wine glass.

 

 

***

 

 

White.

Vivere looked around the relatively empty room, smoothed her hands down her skirt, and crossed the room to perch at the edge of the large conference table in the middle. Jumin was already sitting on the other side of the table, face down in a pile of papers, Jaehee bustling around the room. They weren’t really here for a meeting, it was supposed to be just a quick check in with their parents. Both of them were late.

Jaehee set a white mug of coffee next to Jumin wordlessly, who made a face when he sipped it. She handed a second mug to Vivere and several packets of sugar. A stir stick sat at in her cup, leaning against the side.

Viv made her way around the table to sit on it next to Jumin’s papers. He didn’t look up. She ripped open three sugar packets at the same time, dumping two into her own coffee and one into his.

“Oh, um, Miss Park, Mr. Han doesn’t like sugar in his coff…ee…” she trailed off, realizing the deed had already been done and sighed, starting to get up to make Jumin another cup.

“Nah, he’s fine,” Viv answered with that lighthearted, offhanded business voice she had, stirring her coffee with the stick and then stirring his. Then she pushed it into his hand.

He drank automatically, paused, and flashed a glance up to Vivere. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

The pair of them drank their coffee in silence. White chairs, a white table, white walls, white floor tile, and a white board that practically blended into the wall. It was so sterile. She plopped her black heels on the seat of the white chair just to get it dirty, maybe get rid of some of the feeling of hyper-cleanliness.

Jumin clicked his tongue at her. Viv saw Jaehee tense out of the corner of her eye. Poor girl, she was always on edge around Jumin. She couldn’t blame her, he could be a slave driver if someone allowed him to, which everyone did to be precise. It was the reason he continued to do it. In an act of pointed defiance, she uncrossed her legs and planted both feet on the seat of the chair. He released a huff of amusement.

The door creaked as it opened, a pair of middle aged men entering the conference room. They were laughing, and it filled the space in echoes. Viv turned enough to look at them, but she didn’t bother to get down from her perch.

“Hey Dad. Mornin’ Mr. Han.”

“Mornin’ Birdie.” Her father circled the table to hug her, holding her a little closer than he would have before and shaking her gently from side to side as if he was happy to see her. She could feel the jut of his cheekbone against her face as he grinned, the thinness of his skin when he pressed a kiss to her temple. Viv had to tamp down the budding feelings of worry by pushing him back. With him at an arm’s distance, she adjusted his shirt collar and his tie before he sat next to her on the table.

Chairman Han sat down next to Jumin, turning his seat to face the three of them, elbow on the table. He took a glance at Jumin’s work for a long moment, then placed a hand over it and flipped it over to take Jumin’s attention away from it. “Good morning, Sujin. It’s been some time hasn’t it?”

Viv suppressed a cringe at hearing her real name. “Yeah, it’s good to see you. I’ve been spending weekends at home with Dad, so I haven’t been coming around for dinner lately. Oh, Daddy? How was the move? Did everything go ok?”

Daesuk Park nodded, a hand at his daughter’s back to pat it as if he was trying to comfort her. “Everything was fine, the movers you hired were great, and I’m settled back in comfortably. It’s good to be back at work. I made sure to get your room together, too, in case you have to stay over sometime, just like you asked.”

“You’re going to call me if you need something, right? And you can call Juju, too, right?”

Jumin nodded, tilting his head back to deliberately make that flinty stern eye contact with her father. “My penthouse is only a few blocks away. Please contact me for whatever you need.”

Park laughed and nodded, clearly attempting to shake Jumin and Vivere’s concern. “I promise, I promise. But I’ve been feeling good, I’ll be fine.”

The pair shared a look of disbelief between them, but didn’t pursue the matter further. Jumin cleared his throat to change the subject. “Now, what was it you wanted to see us for?”

That made Chairman Han sit up straight, shoulders back. He seemed rather pleased with himself, Viv thought. “It would be more appropriate for us to discuss this over dinner, but we wanted to tell you two right away. We think you’ll be quite happy with this arrangement.”

Viv roll her eyes. “Ok, let’s hear it.”

“We were talking about how good of a match the two of you would be, that’s all.”

“Excuse me?” Jumin’s face slipped into a blank, business-like expression. It was a default reaction that was his initial reaction to something that would otherwise be negative. She couldn’t blame him.

“I mean, I’d like you to consider marrying Sujin, son.”

Chairman Han grinned up at her. Vivere turned to look at her father, who nodded, his eyes bright. “It’s the best match that we’ve probably ever thought of. I’m not sure why we didn’t think of it before. The two of you are such good friends.”

Vivere’s head shook. “Ok, but, what else is going on? You two are scheming something, aren’t you?”

He sighed, a hand reaching up and scratching at the back of his neck. Viv knew that was one of her dad’s nervous tells. “Ah, it’s more that, you know, a parent can’t help but worry about making sure his daughter is taken care of before –“ he trailed off, eyes falling to his lap. “I know you can take care of yourself, birdie, but when I’m gone, you’re not going to have any family left. Everyone gets into situations where they need their family, and your mother and uncle, well –“

She set a hand on his knee. “Yeah, I got it.” It was a gruff answer, but she wanted to cut him off before he continued rambling. Her heart felt like a hand was squeezing it.

“That’s an admirable purpose, Mr. Park, however –“ Jumin started.

“-Don’t just rule it out immediately, Jumin,” Chairman Han interrupted. “I know you need to see the business advantages to everything, and well… there’s not a lot of direct benefits, but there are no penalties either. It’d be a perfectly safe arrangement with no investor objections, no public upheaval. Sujin’s reputation is as clear as crystal. She has potential for being massive asset to C&R, and she’s an incredible artist in her own right. Besides all that, you two could be happy together. That’s the most important part. You’re already happy together.”

When put like that, it was hard to come up with an argument. Viv looked down to Jumin, finding that he was already looking at her. She rose her eyebrows at him as a prompt for him to say something. He’s the one who was good at arguing, after all. His thumb and forefinger began to readjust his cuff links that didn’t need to be fixed, at which she knew that he didn’t have a reason to refuse either.

She sighed.

“Do you understand how weird this is?” she let a little smile spread over her lips and passed a hand through her hair, trying to give them some reason that they shouldn’t expect them to agree to it. Except that the entire thing was actually reasonable, for once, and considered their happiness instead of a business deal. She didn’t know if Han had done that for Jumin before, but she knew her own experience was all money related.

“It _is_ awkward,” nodded Jumin, allowing himself to share an exasperated expression with her. “You were correct, Father: this would be much more appropriate for a dinner discussion.”

“I guess we could always back out if the whole thing sucks.”

“Betrothals are typically expected for at least a year of engagement.” Jumin leaned in to the table, setting his chin on his hand as he looked up at her. She tapped her feet in frustration in the chair. “I’d imagine that would be more than enough time to test our compatibility.”

“It’d get the dads off our backs for at least a year, then. That’d be nice.”

“Quite.”

Park scoffed beside her, but she ignored him.

“That doesn’t mean you can use your influence to promote me to executive so you can get me on Board, you know.”

“That's not my call. I'm not involved in HR in any capacity unless it's to transfer someone from C&R to a subsidiary. Who turns down a promotion, Vivere?” He chuckled at her.

“But now people will think it’s because we’re betrothed and not because I earned the position. I don’t want that sort of reputation.”

“They’d think that whether you’ve been with Ars Moriendi for ten years or two months. Some people don’t understand a celebrity’s child is capable of being successful in their own right. I'm sure Kenji wants to promote you because you'll be good in the position, and internal promotions cost less money for the department.”

“Fine! Fine.” She threw her hands up before folding her arms over her chest and glaring at him. He smiled even more at her agitation.

They fell into silence, his smile falling away and his face becoming that blank, unreadable thing again. Viv turned her attention to both of their fathers, her own who had this stupid hopeful look in his eyes and a tiny smile curling the corners of his lips. He looked a mess. Tired and just not as well as he should be to be returning to work, but it was his own decision and he wanted to make sure Kenji’s training was complete and his own projects wrapped up before something drastic happened. Chairman Han was watching his own son with the same sort of hope, but probably feeling her eyes on him, shifted his attention to her with a large smile.

Jumin placed a hand at her wrist, long fingers curled almost all the way around it. It wasn’t a tight grip, but it was enough to feel the weight of his hand and warmth through the fabric of her blouse.

“Perhaps…”

He didn’t say more than that, other than drawing her gaze back to his face and the hesitant partial-smile on his lips. His eyes were warm, darker than usual, capturing her attention for much longer than they should have. Viv drew a deep breath, sighed, and then nodded.

“Sure, why not?”

The clatter of their excited fathers’ voices echoed in the too white room.


	2. Blind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jumin and Vivere share their real feelings concerning their engagement to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **{blind}** was inspired by When My Mother Was There from the Persona 5 OST by Shoji Meguro

_{blind}_

_Seek what has been lost_  
_spots of light behind the veil_  
_abnormal rhythms on wrist_  
_watches ticking across time_

 _Refusing to look into the_  
_light down the hallway_  
_makes travel take too long_  
_walking, walking, walking—_

 _too fast, two slow_  
_curtains can’t contain_  
_complete darkness_  
_two fast, too slow_  
_splotching light when_  
_eyes are closed_

_what color are your eyes?_

_Don’t be late (don’t be late)_  
_light cycles don’t wait_  
_for you to decide to bloom_  
_yellow is too large_

 _Refusing to turn on the_  
_light in your own mind_  
_makes thinking take too long_  
_walking, walking, walking—_

 _too fast, two slow_  
_curtains can’t contain_  
_complete darkness_  
_two fast, too slow_  
_splotching light when_  
_eyes are closed_

 _What color are blind eyes?_  
_Listen to the tick of time._

 _too fast, two slow_  
_nothing can contain_  
_complete darkness_  
_two fast, too slow_  
_you won’t know if_  
_your eyes are closed_

 _What color are your eyes?_  
_(What color are your eyes)_  
_What color are your eyes?_  
_(What color are your eyes)_

_Time is ticking_

 

Sujin was the most fond of how the sound was so jazzy on this one, so different from everything else they typically played. When the mood hit her, she ventured out of their comfortable genres to play around and try out something new. The smoothness and technicality that was so prevalent in Jazz and Blues made it difficult to master writing but because it was so clear in her mind, she couldn’t help herself.

Jihyun always knew how to pick up the beats she was looking for but he was the one who sort of pushed these kind of slick, calm rhythms forward, concentrating mostly on the high hat and the snare but switching out dampeners, petals, and drumsticks of different materials to make sure things didn’t ring too much or get too high pitched. He’d been teaching Yoosung how to play the drums in his spare time, on this particular piece translating into sitting him in front of pair of wooden drums played with the hands and ending up with a sound she was determined to use again.

Su looked over at Jumin on the bass guitar while she played lead, who was bobbing slightly to the music in sync with her and Zen, positioned between them on the keyboard. He wasn’t the one who would usually even allow the music to carry him like this, but this was one particularly good song, apparently.

She waited, allowing the music to loop, letting them feel the groove from their feet to the scalp, the whole group relaxing into the sway of notes and movements. Once it felt comfortable, she signaled Rika, who adjusted the mic, and Saeyoung gave them the thumbs up that everything was ready to go. One more eight count and –

“ _One, two, three, four-“_

Rika had to work for this song, but it came out unlike anything they’d tried. Keeping her singing in her chest, it resonated over the mic like a real soul singer. Even though her tessitura still set her voice high, the quality of her singing became a bit more grounded and heavy than normal. Zen backed her up with harmonies, slid under the melodic frame she built and gave her voice some support, so she didn’t need to bottom out so quickly.

At the chorus, Sujin began to accompany the two of them, allowing Rika to pull up a bit with her voice since Su’s was naturally in a lower placement. Jihyun joined with her, his harmonic parts in contrast to Zen’s. Sujin had attempted to set up seventh chords often found in modern jazz, though it was sort of difficult for them to pull off at first, they ended up sounding pretty neat if she said so herself.

When the whole thing was over, Saeyoung played back the recording for them.

Sujin couldn’t help herself, she broke out in a grin. “I know it’s not, like, our thing, but damn this is cool, right? I mean, we can tighten up some of the chord progressions and I think I want to rewrite the bass guitar section around measure a hundred, those eight measures sound a bit weird with the – Juju, what do you think?”

“If we use a half-diminished seventh there instead of a min-major seventh, I think it’ll sound a lot better.”

Her mouth opened into a circle, having not even thought about that. “ _Oh my god_! Yes!” She bounced up and started to rummage around for her notes where she’d scribbled down what parts of music each person had and went over to grab his guitar, playing through the part and writing down the changes.

Zen laughed, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t have even picked that up, man.”

Jumin shrugged. “Once in a while the extra classes come in handy.”

“You two still taking that music theory afterschool thing?” Saeyoung asked, messing around with his computer.

“Just Suji now. I’ve got to spend my afternoons at the office,” rose his eyebrows with a bit of reluctant acceptance.

“That sucks, dude.”

He shrugged again.

“Well, trustfundkid, that’s how it is when you own like half the world, I guess,” Zen smirked, brushing his bangs out of his face. Jumin rolled his eyes at the nickname but didn’t bother to correct it, as he’d been calling him that for a year and he’d gotten tired of it by now. “I think it sounds pretty damn cool.”

Jihyun chuckled. “I like it, maybe one of my favorites so far.”

Rika fumbled with the sheet of lyrics in her hands. “I think it would be nice if the end of this was like, an echoing thing.”

“What, like the girls and guys, or like, you and Zen and me and Su?”

“It would sound better if it was you and Rika and me and Zen,” Sujin announced from across the room. “We match closer in timbre. And maybe if the echo is an octave lower? Or Rika could go up half an octave. The higher frequency would make it sound louder without screwing around with volume too much. We just have to make sure to match vowels really well.”

When she came back over, she handed Jumin a piece of paper that had notes for a fix on the chords, even though he probably didn’t need them.

“You know, if you forget. You’ve got a lot of shit in that brain these days,” Sujin laughed.

He narrowed one eye at her, looking disgruntled but she poked her tongue out at him back.

“So, Suji, are you ever going to give us a rundown of what these lyrics actually mean?” Jihyun asked her, likely to get her attention off of irritating Jumin and back onto the practice session.

“I’d like to know that too,” Yoosung piped up. “It’s all obscure and stuff. And, I don’t know, maybe it’s sort of… weird… to imply people who are blind have a specific eye color?”

“Uh, that’s not it,” her head shook, her arms crossing over her chest. “I mean, it’s a metaphor. It’s about a person that’s blind to their own or someone else’s faults by choice.”

Jumin rose his eyebrows in a pointed look at the sixteen year old, and she rolled her eyes back at him.

“Anyway. They’re like, not wanting to acknowledge shit happening so they’re covering their eyes. But it’s not dark really, it’s only dark cause they’ve closed their eyes. Asking what color are a blind person’s eyes is, I don’t know, asking someone to reevaluate themselves. The conclusion they should reach is that the color doesn’t matter? You know, be honest with yourself and that sort of trash,” she looked at Jihyun, and wrinkled her nose. “Or you can just figure something out for yourself for once.”

“Su! Don’t be so mean!” Rika shrieked at her, bounding over to her and throwing her weight onto the other girl’s back. Sujin had to use all her strength to heft her up onto her back.

“Tell your boyfriend not to be such a tool, Rika.”

“Why are you such a- a-!”

“A bitch?” She cackled evilly. “You can say it, princess. Time to take a break?”

“Ice cream?” Saeyoung suggested, dragging his twin out of the corner where he’d been drawing.

“Burgers!” Yoosung practically shouted.

“Fucking Christ, you’re heavy, Rika,” Sujin complained, but carried her out the door anyway.

“Don’t take the lord’s name in vain!”

“Jesus _motherfucking cock sucking-_ “

“Su-JIN!”

Laughter filed out behind Sujin and Rika.

“I think it’s my turn to pay.” Jihyun noted, fishing his wallet from his backpack. “We graduate in a few months.”

Jumin stopped at the door to watch Jihyun slip his wallet into his pocket.

“I’m going to miss this.”

“You sound like an old man.”

Both of them laughed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Viv sat at the other end of his couch, sipping at the whiskey he kept precisely because of her. Today she took the first one neat, and the second with ice. He’d polished off almost an entire bottle of wine by time she’d finished her second drink, having started drinking before she’d arrived. It was a stressful time for both of them, this whole situation of getting married catching them off guard. Despite having agreed to it, they hadn’t even spoken of it for the entire week they’d been engaged.

Jumin wasn’t sure what kind of relationship he was expecting, or how it’d change in the face of being together again alone. He certainly didn’t expect for them to spend it silently getting trashed.

He set his wine glass aside, determined to actually talk to her about this matter, but then realized he wasn’t sure of what he wanted to say. Viv swirled her ice in her glass, cast a glance his way, and smiled, disarming him completely. Any semblance of what he thought he might say flew out the window when those maple-brown eyes turned his way.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she noted, with a hint of teasing in her voice, setting down her own glass. “What are you thinking about?”

Swallowing down nervousness that should have went away with the wine, he attempted to return the smile. She laughed, likely because it was a botched attempt at expressing something he wasn’t feeling. In a business meeting, he could fake it, but around his small circle of friends it was so fruitless that he wondered why he still tried.

“Us,” he answered, finally. She didn’t lose her smile like he thought she would, only nodded, a gentle prompt for him to continue his thoughts. “I have no intention of breaking off this arrangement, Viv. In fact, I plan to fight to keep it in tact if I need to.”

“Hopefully you’re worried for no reason, we should have a least a year to prove that this can work. But who knows.”

“Exactly. Nothing my father does is logical, especially when it comes to relationships.” Jumin complained, reaching across the couch to grab hold of her hand, hearing her laugh as he pulled her to closer to him, twining their fingers together. “We made a promise, years ago.”

She seemed to visibly soften then, and nodded. “I remember. I’m not sure if we knew what we were promising then.”

“I might not have,” he conceded, “but you did.”

Her head tilted, and he couldn’t help but wish he could read her mind when she looked at him like that, an expression so similar to Elizabeth the Third’s that he was sure they had to be having similar emotions. “You’re right, I did. But do you, now?”

“Yes, and I’m going to keep it.”

The pair of them knew all too well perhaps much too early just what kind of marriages they would be forced into. Both of them had fought tooth and nail to make sure they didn’t end up in situations that would end with scarred families and dysfunctional marriages. It was a best case scenario that they’d promised each other, if they had the opportunity to get married, they would take it regardless of whether or not they loved each other romantically or not. Despite being a naïve eighteen year old when he’d made it, he considered it the most important promise he’d made his entire life.

They’d loved each other dearly as friends for their entire lives. He'd fallen head over heels in love with her as a teenager, a feeling he'd set aside and he wasn't sure he knew  _how_ to feel anymore. If he was honest with himself, the prospect of feeling so much about any one thing or person was more daunting now than it was then. 

In the end, even if they didn’t learn to be lovers, they could still raise a happy family, support each other in their ideal careers… they were, and would always be friends.

Perhaps this meant more to Jumin then it did to her, maybe because of the way in the last several years as he grew closer to thirty years old things became even more difficult to navigate in terms of a ‘love life’. The pressure to have a family was heavy on his shoulders, to the point where the lack of a partner made business associates worry for the future safety of the company, which at its roots is a family business. Without an heir to pass it on to, his own ‘ability’ to be CEO came into question. The entire thing was absurd.

“We should talk about this in real terms, however,” he continued. “I want to make sure this is a mutually beneficial commitment, Viv.”

“Business-like in everything, as usual,” she wrinkled her nose at him, an expression that made him feel silly for his intensity over the situation. “It’s sort of odd, now, we’ve talked this subject to death when we weren’t able to make the decision ourselves, and once we are actually put in the position to accept it, it becomes some sort of business deal.”

“Unfortunately, marriages are always business deals,” he frowned.

“You’re not gaining anything from my end, though,” she shrugged. “I’d be gaining an unfair amount from–“

“I don’t think you understand just how important to me it is that I would be able to grow a family with a woman I can trust and tolerate being around for more than five minutes at a time,” he groused, his tone of voice harsh and forward. Jumin wished he could express to her just how unlikely of a situation this was. Or how terrified he was of the sort of woman he would be forced to marry because of business.

“God, Jumin, what kind of people has Han been setting you up with?”

Jumin shook his head. He didn’t want to answer that, for his sake and for hers. She seemed to understand.

“Are you sure that’s enough of a mutual benefit?” She sounded truly worried. “You know I’m not that great of a person.”

That made him smile. “That makes two of us.”

“You _are_ an asshole,” she agreed, the smile that returned to her lips narrowed her eyes. He grinned in return, the familiar insult somehow comforting. “Since we’ve fulfilled one promise, we should make a new one, I think.”

“What kind of promise?”

“I guess I was thinking about our own sort of vows, just between the two of us? I mean, when you take away the fact that the entire thing is a farce for our parents to secure lucrative positions in a business conglomerate for their children who will be expected to carry out their wishes to the letter after their retirement so they can go fuck off and do what they want?”

Something to make it meaningful to the two of them, she meant, in her sarcastic manner. After knowing the woman for her entire twenty-six years, he’d be able to pick up on that instantly. “Alright, what do you propose?”

Viv shifted around on his couch, up on her knees with her feet beneath her and facing him, hands flat on her thighs, very formal. It forced him to turn a bit to look better at her, tucking one leg beneath him.

“Promise to be good to yourself first and foremost, and a good friend to each other second. Third, a united family who supports each other, and money comes last. No matter what.”

His throat closed, leaving him unable to speak, nodding instead.

“You have to say it or it’s not a promise, Juju,” she softly scolded him like she did when they were children and he was trying to get out of a less important promise, but one like it just the same.

Clearing his throat, he tried to say it without his voice breaking, lifting a hand and offering a pinky that she grabbed with her own. “I pinky promise to be first be good to myself, second a good friend to you, third a united, supportive family, and money comes last – no matter what.”

With the tilt of their hands, they pressed their thumbs together to ‘seal’ the promise, both of them sharing quiet laughter. The knot of anxiety that he spent a week building was for nothing, as usual, if he’d spoken to her earlier he wouldn’t have needed to spend that time worrying about it. She was always reasonable, and for as long as they’d known each other he should have figured she wouldn’t over-react. 

A familiar sentiment fell from between his lips before he could stop himself from saying it, words he’d spent his life saying to her in one way or another, words he hoped would transform into something else and stay entirely the same. “I love you, Sujin.”

“Love you, too, Juju,” she quipped back at him without hesitation. The sense of security from those words making him calmer, furthering the unbundling of toxic knots of thread. “It’s not like you to get so emotional. Is there more to this than you’re telling me?”

“Honestly, I am just relieved. I was not sure you would be satisfied with me.”

“What? Satisfied? Juju, this is the best thing I could ever ask for. It’s still kind of scary, though, right?” She looked down at the hands that they’d curled together again. Even though her posture had relaxed, she was still sitting facing him, their hands occupying the empty couch space between them. “I keep thinking what if our friendship gets ruined, or what if we never actually fall in love? Would we end up having an unhappy marriage? I think all of us are afraid of our children having the same sort of childhood as we did.”

“That has also been on my mind,” he nodded. “Ruining our friendship is terrifying.”

“But it’s also a risk I’m not willing to pass up on. I guess we’re just going to have to work hard to make sure we create a safe place for each other, mentally and physically. Happy marriages don’t just happen, they’re made by people who work hard to make that a reality for them.”

He hoped she was right, that a happy marriage was something that could be cultivated and not a matter of luck. Presuming she was, then he would do his damndest to make sure this was the best possible outcome for them.

Viv cleared her throat, drawing his attention away from his slightly wine-hazed thoughts back to her. His brow rose at her, since usually that was the sign she had something else to talk about.

“So, you know there’s sort of something else we have to talk about, right?”

This time his brow pitched in confusion. “You’ll have to enlighten me.”

“You know, physical affection in public.”

She didn’t beat around the bush, did she? Then again he shouldn’t have expected her to (had he?) since it wasn’t like she ever had, really. “I’m not that comfortable being touched.”

He wondered if her eyes would get stuck in the back of her head with the way she rolled them. “Shit, I know, I didn’t think you’d be much of a PDA sort of person if you were in a relationship. That’s not exactly the problem.”

“Then-?”

Her arms crossed over her chest, dislodging her hand from his. “I’m not going to have our first kiss be for cameras, mister.”

“I’m pretty sure we had a first kiss quite some time ago.”

“I’m going to forget you said that.”

He hummed, amusement along the edges of the sound.

“Listen, that’s beside the point. Do you know how embarrassing it is going to be for me if the entire thing is awkward and caught on camera?” she seemed to be getting upset, a hand waving emphatically. “Our dads are already spreading all sorts of details about us. If we can’t pull off a believably infatuated couple, all credibility of our relationship is going to fly out the window.”

“I’m not sure why that matters, it’s an arranged marriage – what do they expect?”

Eyes narrowing irritably, she frowned at him. So something was going on that he didn’t know about behind the scenes, and it probably had to do with the ‘dads spreading details’ part.

He quickly amended his question. “What are they saying?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. We’re hopelessly in love and super adorable, they can barely keep us apart, we’re like the perfect couple, all that bullshit.”

“This is making you upset.”

“I mean, obviously. Do you know how many women have come up to me and played twenty questions? I’m tired of being interrogated about how you are in bed.”

“Excuse me?”

“Precisely. And –“ she continued, leaning forward with wide eyes, “ – congrats, Jumin Han, the supposition that your dick is involved somehow makes someone more valuable.”

He didn’t like that at all.

“Oh yeah- specifically the gross execs at C&R that I was stupidly fooled into believing were in at least decent marriages have approached me, some of them multiple times! I can’t go to the main building without being accosted by someone!”

“Who?”

“Pretty much the entire board of directors, for one. Look, Jumin, I’m going to get fired from my job and neither of our dads will be able to fix it if one of those lechers put their hands on me—“

“I'm sorry, Viv—"

"—I know you can't do anything about it, you don't have to apologize. Any other employee you could get rid of but the  _board_ practically has immunity until the public says something about it and the shareholders oust them."

"Still." His head shook. “I presume that isn’t the only problem if it’s our parents involved.”

She immediately deflated. “No, Mr. Han is using our relationship to ‘debunk’ rumors about your sexuality,” her eyes rolled again.

Jumin wondered why that was even an issue, as the media often created rumors and they ignored them. Why, suddenly, is his father attempting to address them? He sighed.

She echoed his sigh with her own. “Look, when inevitably we’re demanded to perform our affection like monkeys in a sideshow, we should probably be prepared to be convincing. If there’s anything that’s going to cause problems for us, it’ll be if the dads think we’re not compatible.”

“I suppose you’re correct. Regular public contact will make things much easier in the long run.”

Viv verbalized the groan that he felt in his bones. Nothing about this was going to be easy, would it? He sighed heavily and lifted up his arms unnaturally as if they were leaden.

“Then, come here. We’ll make this a normal routine.”

Her mouth curled up again, displeased, but she scooted into his arms anyway. After a few moments, they’d relaxed, as despite the fiasco of forcing themselves to do it in the first place, it was a familiar place for both of them. He wondered what else was normal for them, like holding hands when in private and cradling her against him like this? Expressing soft words of mutual affection. He’d often kiss her hair or her forehead on occasions where something sweeter was needed by either one of them.

What did Jihyun used to do? He’d kiss her hands sometimes, especially as young children and her fingers hurt from hours-long violin practice with her mother. He’d always dance with her, the more dramatically musical one of the two of them, which would be fine but entirely out of character if there was no cause to dance. There was that nose thing he’d do to her, but that became weird when they got past eight years old.

Was the only choice to kiss her?

“Fine, I’ll kiss you.” The statement sounded sort of like a complaint, thought he hadn’t meant it as one.

She sputtered a laugh into his chest and shook her head.

“No, what?”

She was the one who’d brought it up, on top of the fact that she was the one who didn’t want to have an embarrassing first performance in public once they were required to do so.

Her head shook again.

With a huffed sigh, he pulled her back from his chest and she flopped back slightly, revealing the sound of her laughter that she’d muffled in his shoulder. His hands pushed her cheeks so that it muted the sound. She tried to say something, likely some sort of complaint, but he’d forced her mouth to pucker in that face children so often think is funny. Right at that moment, she didn’t.

He drew her face up, and leaned his head down, taking advantage of the position she was in to press his lips to hers and make a ‘mwah!’ sound against her mouth.

Then he abruptly let her go.

Viv practically shrieked as she fell over the other direction onto his couch, laughing until she was gasping for breath, and then rolled purposefully onto the floor.

He knew it was childish. It was silly and stupid and entirely unlike him. It was playful and freeing and when her reaction wasn’t to reprimand him but to enjoy him and this moment, he let himself feel happy. Together, they didn’t need to act like anyone else, censor themselves, make sure they were polite, proper, or apologize for not being the person someone else thought they were.

Jumin could get used to this.

 

 

***

 

 

It was much too early in the morning, but Viv had to attend a meeting at C&R. Chairman Han had requested that they slip it into her already-bloated schedule since he felt like she had potential to be a good business partner for Jumin in the long run. She was just doing it to appease her future father-in-law, well, but more so her fiancée, since doing something for his father was more important to him than it was to her.

It was _really weird_ to think of Jumin as her fiancée. Twenty-something years of being best friends and all of a sudden they were being thrown into this crazy relationship that skipped way too many of the steps. Well, not necessarily? Wasn’t it a good idea that they knew exactly what they wanted out of their relationship, why they’d agreed to the arrangement in the first place, and had made sure to get on the same page when it came to what they expected from each other.

And, well, it wasn't as if she was going to protest. He was her high school sweetheart, so to speak, despite the fact that they never actually dated. She was sure that affection never truly disappeared. Hopefully. Ideally.

They were supposed to meet outside the C&R building twenty minutes before the meeting started, so they could arrive ten minutes early but have ten minutes to catch up before going inside. She stopped, looking at her phone for the time, she was a minute or two early.

A black town car that she recognized stopped in front of the building a minute before he should have arrived. When he stepped out of the car, he stopped and spoke to someone for a moment before seeming to dismiss himself and come straight over to her, a smirk clear on his face. He looked too happy to be The Jumin Han. She wondered if he’d gotten replaced with a doppelgänger.

“What’s up with you today?” she needled, pointedly raising her eyebrows.

“Good morning, Vivere,” he answered, slight annoyance bleeding into his voice as he narrowed one eye at her. Then he turned his eyes up, which roamed their surroundings as he took her bag.

“’Mornin’ Juju,” she tried to be annoyed, folding her hands at the small of her back and looking around the courtyard, watching as people looked away when she noticed them. “Seriously, though? You’re all smiley today.”

“Do you prefer me to be miserable, oh sweet fiancée?”

“Definitely,” she teased. “It’s my goal in life. What did you think I was doing here, anyway? Going to work or something?”

He grinned.

Letting herself return the grin he’d graced her with, she swayed in her heels, sounding sarcastic when she spoke, or perhaps too saccharine that she’d actually be mimicking the way most women talked to him. “So, what does my handsome future husband’s schedule look like today?”

“Ugh, I’d rather hear you insult me for the rest of my life than to hear that tone again,” he scoffed. She laughed. “I’m eternally busy this entire week,” he sounded a bit tired. “Father acquired a jewelry company several months ago and has not done anything with it. We have to do something or we’ll start losing money on the deal.”

“Yikes, is there anything I can help with?” he wasn’t usually so forthright with what was being difficult at work, so it actually rankled all the warning signals in her nerves, making her cast her eyes look up at him worriedly.

“Just seeing you this morning is helping me.”

“Ew, stop.”

He stepped forward, towards her, to lift her chin in his one free hand. She froze, tried to look around with only her eyes to see if anyone was watching this man be super weird. Lifting his brows almost as high as they could go, he turned her face from side to side, then let it go.

She’d been holding her breath.

“That’s a nice lipstick color on you,” he said after a long moment.

“What? No.”

“Something was just different about you,” he shrugged one shoulder. “I figured I should check.”

“Oh, my, god.”

He laughed.

“What’s gotten into you, Juju?” Even though she was asking the question as if she was irritated, she was curling up her lips in order to hold back a smile. She knew exactly what was happening. He was being playful, and that was a rare thing to bask in.

“You know exactly what is ‘wrong’ with me,” he made another attempt to touch her, that she side-stepped. He leaned down to peer at her face at which he received a poke on the nose. “God forbid I’m happy for once, Viv.”

“It’s just so weird.”

“It is, isn’t it?” he agreed, not dropping his smile.

“It’s nice,” she answered.

“I think so.”

His eyes seemed to soften, the morning light casting a golden highlight along the rim of cobalt-gray eyes, sweetness that warmed her through despite the chilly fall air. Viv had no choice but to share that tender smile with him, a moment where the bustle of the morning rush to get to work on time faded away. They didn’t bother to move while people stepped around them to go inside.

Jumin was still leaning down somewhat, his face level with hers. She brushed his unruly hair out of his eyes, back behind his ear. He really needed a haircut, but he worked so much that he never had the time. Cupping his cheeks, she spread her thumbs over his eyebrows, watched his eyes flutter shut. Then she brushed her lips over his, light enough that her lipstick didn’t transfer.

“Oh? That’s interesting,” he chuckled.

“Tell me what I can do to make your week a bit easier.”

“This was hell to schedule in the first place.”

“Jumin. Han.”

He opened his eyes again to look at her as she tilted her head at him, waiting for him to concede, then huffed a sigh through his nose. “We have to do the advertising in house, which means music production has to come from AM. It seems everything over there is booked tight.”

“Ah, we hate it when executives from different subs try to rush things through our lineup. Did you put your name on the requests?”

“I didn’t. I was letting advertising take care of it. I got the email with the additional problems this morning.”

“Send me the info and let me take care of it.”

“The turn around is too fast.”

“I’ve got a metric shit ton of spare music squirreled away. Don’t worry about my timeline, worry about yours.”

“I hope Kenji won’t be angry with me this time.” Once he straightened up, he brushed off his lapel and straightened his tie before taking her hand in his and kissing her knuckles. Then he pushed the door open to the building and held it open for her to pass through. “Thank you, Viv.”

Viv hid a secret smile, being able to help him out made her happy She opted not to comment on it for the same of her own sanity, the last ten minutes being already too much for likely the rest of the week.

“I honestly didn’t think you’d be such an affectionate partner,” she said instead, teasing, though she didn’t let go of his hand. It was nice that they didn’t need to hide the little things they already tended to do in private to be affectionate anymore. Those little things where what got her through an otherwise lonely childhood.

“If it bothers you, I will refrain from –“

“That’s not what I said,” she huffed, glancing his way. “You just turn into the princely type when you’re dating someone, apparently.”

“It isn’t something I knew about myself either,” he replied honestly. “Or perhaps it’s because it’s you. This entire thing could just be your fault.”

“Hey, now, don’t blame you being a corn-ball on me. I’m a stone-cold bitch.”

He laughed. “That, you are.”

“And we’re going to keep it that way.”

He glanced down at her with this look that totally meant he didn’t believe her one bit, and she knew that he shouldn’t, then opened the door of the conference room and escorted her through. He pulled out a chair for her to sit next to him, making sure their chairs were close enough to speak to each other, and spread some rather important-looking documents out for her to look at.

“This is the property we were originally looking to build a dorm to house trainees for Ars Moriendi,” he informed her.

“Oh, that project isn’t even in the works anymore, is it?”

“I’m not sure,” he huffed an inaudible laugh. “Wouldn’t you know more about it than me?”

“From what dad told me, it’s all tied up in legal problems but I haven’t heard about it again in months,” she nodded. She probably was more informed about the project, actually. “Dad said even if we do end up being able to take on our own trainees, we’re talking about three to five years out.”

He looked at her, and then scanned over some papers. “Do you think we should still be preparing for that, then? The estimates from our construction company said at least two years to build this. That means three, considering weather and setbacks.”

“No way, because you could potentially be sitting on depreciating property for years. That’s like, taxes and all kinds of other bull to pay, when we’re not even sure if it’ll happen at all. Besides, the location is kind of far from the city, which means trainees would have to travel and that’s a whole different pain. Who even picked that location?”

He scoffed, lowering his voice. “Father bought it for something different, then broke up with that girlfriend.”

She covered her mouth with a hand, not wanting the whole room to hear. “Oh, shit.”

Jumin hummed, nodded, sliding several other documents over to her. She took them and began to leaf through the sheets, demographic reports, businesses within twenty-five miles, the types of businesses that might be advantageous there, and correspondence between the company and the government.

“I mean, you’ve even gotten blueprints for this building, what’s stopping you for using it for something else? Or just renting it out as an apartment building?”

“Government has a small business project that they’re trying to promote so the permit was rejected except in specific circumstances,” he informed her. She noticed he had pulled back all that soft and smiley for his normal, blank expression. He pretty much looked bored, though she knew he wasn’t.

The presenter, Todd, was a guy who worked in accounts. Someone she knew and had to talk to frequently lately, but she didn’t expect to see here. He apparently also didn’t think he’d see her, since he seemed surprised. She sent him a casual salute, it was something people in production did often. “Hey, Todd.”

“Nice to have you, Viv.” He nodded, not really a bow, but more pronounced than a ‘yes’. “Do you have news from sound?”

“No, not really,” she looked at Jumin. Everyone else was staring at both of them. They were going to be quite the spectacle, huh? “I’m not really here for input, ya’know?”

Todd nodded, bowed. “I’d like to start the meeting at this time.”

Jumin returned the nod, giving him the permission to start. Viv reached over him a bit to grab more papers to read through, listening quietly to Todd explain the situation to the other staff, a mix of people from project management of various departments, other accounts people, and the directors from real estate and urban development. Todd detailed the costs of various uses for the space that would fit the parameters of the government’s stipulations on top of detailing the alternatives they could do with the space in the case of basically just getting rid of it.

She took one of his pens and started making small marks on each place that she found correlating information. He watched her do it quietly, and she figured he’d tell her not to if she was doing something she shouldn’t, so she kept going.

Several people threw out ideas of what to do with the space, from selling it to building something there to flip, all things Jumin rejected on the ground of something or another, mainly on loss of revenue from buying the land in the first place. It was apparently a very expensive piece of land that it would be the best to use instead of sell in the long term. However, since they couldn’t use it for what it was purchased for in the first place, there were even more extra costs involved with covering what was spent on the several rounds of initial plans.

“I don’t know, what about a grocery store?” she said, pretty much under her breath.

“Hmm?” Jumin looked at her. “A grocery?”

“Yeah, it’s on the list of permits Urban Planning sent you would be an accepted type of commercial lot.” She reached over to tap the paper he had in front of him. “I mean, I don’t know anything about this sort of thing, don’t listen to me.”

“Vivere,” he leveled one of those especially stern looks at her, and she frowned back at him. “Say what you were going to say.”

She shrugged. “I mean, there’s like, a food desert here.”

“I’m not sure we use that sort of terminology here,” he noted pointedly, “but I understand what you mean.”

Viv carefully lined up several pieces of paper that seemed relevant to what she seemed to have pieced together in her head. “You remember when we were in college, at Harvard they had that health food store with specialty small brands that made things for specific allergies or intolerances? We went there all the time when I’d come to visit.”

“Yes, I remember,” he nodded, waiting for her to get to the point.

“So like, what about a place like that? But like, an actual grocery store that carried stuff like that?” She shifted, to point at one of the papers she had lined up. “According to this survey, the residents in the area are looking for better options for organic produce and foods for people with allergies. And then paper here says the closest department-style grocery is more than ten miles away. And this paper says there are like, a ton of residents with children in the area, and at least three high schools. And your guidelines from the government says that a grocery is a viable choice, or building a space where you rent out for small businesses.”

His brows rose at her, which she took as a sign to continue speaking.

“I mean, a lot of those businesses that make food for people who have allergies and intolerances are like, small businesses making something for a niche market. Most of them sell online, or you have to purchase locally, because they’ll spoil with affordable shipping. But, a company like C&R would be able to support businesses like that. Frequent and small shipments, which might be too expensive for the average consumer is do-able for a corporation. You’d be hitting, like, five of these things on this list with just this one venture.”

He looked around the room, waiting for other people to comment.

“It sounds like it could be a good plan, but it would also eat into profits to offer those kinds of services to people,” Todd frowned as if he didn’t really like attempting to shoo away her idea, since it was the first one that Jumin had spent real time listening to. It could just be because it was her, though, as evidenced by his arm slung over the back of her chair. “And we would have to offer the shelf space at a lower price in order to offset the costs for those small businesses to be able to afford putting their products in that store.”

Viv nodded. “I guess that would be a problem… wouldn’t you get some sort of tax break by helping these small businesses out?”

“Each of these stipulations comes with a benefit to C&R,” Jumin pointed out. “It is not detailed in this letter, it’s on a case by case basis, however it was made clear to me that while it would not be as lucrative as, perhaps, a real estate venture, it would still come with its benefits.”

The various staff started to talk amongst themselves around the room for a moment before someone else spoke up. “It is possible for us to turn this into a taller building and offer the top as apartments.”

“There’s a university close by. Making sure our prices are lower than the apartments in the immediate area of the university would be an incentive for students to go the extra train stops in order to live here.”

“It looks like we could work out a deal in that vein, the bottom two floors devoted to a grocery with the rest of the floors residential.”

“Fresh has been doing very well lately and it has been building some brand equity in the past five years. Building another store would be a good idea. We were planning on expanding more this year, and have two locations in the planning. We could move one of those locations to here and make it a specialty store.”

Jumin turned his head to look at Viv, who was astounded at the rate of which the various people around the room quickly and easily came up with ideas once they were given a bit of a spark and a push in the right direction. Everyone was writing down various things to check on and get straightened out before the next meeting when it came to costs, projected profits, and researching small businesses to offer their products to be carried.

“Perhaps I helped a bit?”

“I think you’ve helped a lot.”

She had to compress the feeling of excitement that threatened to bubble up in the form of some sort of bouncy glee into her smile. Viv bit the inside of her cheek so she didn’t squeak, leaning to whisper to him. “I might be talking out of my ass, though.”

His head shook slightly. “You’re not, all the evidence is right in front of you. Besides, that’s what we do, make a vague, somewhat feasible idea work.”

Both of them turned their attention back to the meeting. At some point Jumin might have taken her hand and hooked their pinkies together, or Viv might have, and if asked neither of them would admit to doing it or that it had happened at all.


	3. Ocean and Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which love isn't allowed until its convenient, put on display, and oogled for some sort of gain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **{Ocean and Stars}** is inspired by Orion's Belt by Sabrina Claudio

_{Ocean and Stars}_

_Feelings of the night cover him in confusion_  
_secrets hidden in plain sight, mm._  
_Mine-filled waters volatile with bottles of emotions_  
_avoiding shipwreck from the light, mm._

 _Your body says you want to change the way you wrap your arms around me._  
_We can’t say no, we’re over - flow to the depths of hidden waters._  
_You’ve seen too much, you know too much, I know that you can’t believe me:_  
_my night sky full of sparkling stars will never leave the ocean lonely._

 _Listen to my voice guide your way,_  
_the stars point the way beyond your oceans_  
  
_Nightly visits to the ocean’s floor to meet your heart_  
_secrets hide inside you, hm?_  
_Your lips part with questions tattooed into your throat:_  
_Are you worth it? (Yes)_  
_Do I love you and_  
_does a star need an ocean?_  
_I can prove your heart beats._

 _Looking at me like you want to say your prayers to this mortal temple…_  
_I won’t say no, you’ll overflow an empty vessel ready to receive you._  
_Write your fears with that inky darkness since unsent messages will go unread._  
_Meet me with lungs full of water, touch my lips and fill me, my amore_

_Listen to my voice guide your way,  
the stars point the way beyond your oceans._

_Feel where you’ve most desired_  
_You’ll never need to worry about losing me_  
_Forget every other touch than this_  
_Forget every other touch than this_

 _It doesn’t matter where we are_  
_‘Cause we’re each other’s ocean and stars_  
_Forget every other touch than this_  
_Forget every other touch than this_

_Listen to my voice guide your way,  
the stars point the way beyond your oceans_

Sujin gently swayed in a short black dress that shifted as she moved. She’d dyed her hair a lighter brown while she was away at college. A necklace of small, finely cut diamonds sat at the base of her throat. Stockings solidly black were adorned with small gold star-shaped crystals, twinkling with her movements, shining yellow streaks of light across people in the crowd and on the walls. Black stilettos completed the look for the formal function, he knew she didn’t wear them by choice, but as an executive’s daughter she was expected to look the part.

One thing hadn’t changed since they left for college: their parents still loved to show them off.

Christmas as the child of a C&R-affiliated executive meant having a major part in these events while your parents went and did whatever they wanted. Jumin would have come home for the month-long holiday anyway, but two weeks of it was full of boring company parties. This was the first one for executives, investors, and large-percent owners of C&R stock. She’d been booked as the night’s entertainment, representing the best-of-the-best of Ars Moriendi’s upcoming artists. There was extra notoriety in the fact that she was attending university at the most prestigious music institution in the world, only to be expected of AM’s celebrity top executive’s daughter.

Jumin was fortunately off the hook for this function, someone else’s son’s responsibility to play host while he spent his time being a polite and interesting conversationalist for all of his father’s friends, though he would have a hectic week preparing for being host of the Christmas charity party. He deliberately kept to himself, avoiding speaking to people as much as possible in order to watch her sing, even though she’d sent him these songs months ago.

Hearing them performed live with the improvements on her voice that six months of intense training made took his breath away. He didn’t want to miss even one moment. Her eyes met his when she’d begun to sing this particular track, and hadn’t released him. Well, to be fair, he couldn’t be sure. He knew from experience that she could possibly only see lights, that she’d chosen a random spot in the crowd to focus on to make it seem like she was looking at _someone_ but no one in particular at the same time. He should know better, but he wanted her to sing for him and only him.

Jihyun silently came to stand next to him, eyes on the young woman on stage. He pressed a hand to his chest and his shoulders rocked in time to the beat of the song, eyes closing. Having him nearby was good, he wouldn’t let Jumin lose himself.

As backup singers sang the chorus over and over, she ad-libbed quiet and controlled, sensual, intimate runs. It was the sort of sounds he wondered if that’s what her moans were like under the influence of his hands on her body, touching her like the song asked of him.

Not him, obviously. Whatever person the song was for, or perhaps it was for no one at all. She often wrote songs with someone in mind, but in the end they became everyone’s song. Death of the author and all that.

He exhaled deeply as if he was holding his breath as the song ended, Jihyun’s eyes fluttered open and together they took a long drink of their glasses of wine.

“I’m glad Rika isn’t here tonight,” Jihyun chuckled ruefully. “I don’t think we’d have the chance to enjoy Suji sing like this.”

Jumin wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything, only lifted his glass back to his lips. His friend needed the space to complain about his relationship once in a while, Jumin just wished he wouldn’t put the two ladies against each other.

“Had you known Su’s voice had gotten so much better the past few months?”

“I hadn’t; it was a nice surprise.”

“Yeah, she had mentioned she has to perform in front of difficult critics everyday so this level of singing had become natural to her. In one semester of college. I suppose Julliard is as amazing as they say.”

“I’m glad she’s there. She deserves it.”

“Rika would be jealous. She’s always envied Su’s singing.” He laughed, softly, lifting his wine glass to his lips. Jumin wondered how many drinks he’d had. Then he turned to look at Jumin, as if he’d found a new subject. “This song was for you, wasn’t it?”

“I doubt it,” Jumin smiled.

“You’re right. You made it very clear that you weren’t interested in her. I bet she moved on already, found some boyfriend at college.”

Jumin sucked in a breath, drawing as much of those rankled nerves inside him and locked them down before he reacted strangely. His response was a strained half-cough, half-laugh. “I hope so.”

“Her song writing has improved quite a bit.”

“I think so, too.”

“Ocean and Stars. I asked her for the lyrics and she sent them to me. They’re beautiful.”

“You’re excited about attempting to decipher them.”

“Yes, yes.” Jihyun nodded, conceded. “It’s like a poem. Will you spare me an ear?”

“If I must,” Jumin’s head shook with a tiny bit of a smile, his ears focusing in on her voice again, allowing Jihyun’s rambling bleed through here and there.

“I think my favorite part of the song is the first stanza. You should see the liner notes. Mind filled is spelled m-i-n-e, alluding to a mine field… and these bottles are the mines themselves… and these bottles refer to a ‘message in a bottle’… and the song is thematically about water…”

Jihyun insisted that Suji communicated primarily through her music. Jumin disagreed. She was always open, honest, and blunt. Looking at her lyrics with a fine-toothed comb was unnecessary. His friend enjoyed it, so he’d allow it. Even if he didn’t listen to everything he said.

“God, even the stars and the ocean is beautiful metaphor for unattainable love.”

“Is it?”

“They will always be friends, but never lovers. They’re always together, but can’t touch each other.” The mint-haired man pressed a hand to his heart again, his head tilting back to look at the ceiling. “You should ask her out already.”

Jumin’s brow rose, glancing at his friend and grabbing two glasses of wine from the waiter who walked by, handing off their empty ones. He downed half of it before Jihyun continued. “You’ve mentioned –“

“But you can’t.” Jihyun cut him off. Yes, his friend was drunk. He’d never interrupt another’s speech. “Your father has already obligated you to someone else. And Sujin’s father picked that one millionaire’s son.”

Not a subject he wanted to think about right then.

“Jumin, you should go for her anyway.” His friend grabbed his arm forcefully, at which Jumin patted his hand lightly until he let go. “Make your father understand you’ve made your choice and be stern about it. I know her father would be amenable, no one would reject an offer from _you_ , and Su loves you so much.”

Swallowing hard, his head shook slowly. “Jihyun, I’ve…” he sighed. “I’ve already approached father about Sujin. He rejected my –“

“Oh Jumin,” Jihyun practically moaned in pain, the hand returning, weight hanging on to him for dear life. “ _Elope_.”

A sigh to pry away a hand again.

“I’m sorry, Jumin, I want you to be happy.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Viv shuffled her feet as she waited in Jumin’s car, Driver Kim looking into the rearview mirror every once in a while and peeking at the huge box she had sitting next to her. She felt like an idiot when she realized it, and then felt like even more of an idiot when it passed by and she wasn’t able to do anything. Things had been insane the past two weeks and she really could not deal. He hadn’t even mentioned it to her like he might have when they were younger, but considering the situation she was the last person who had the right –

The door opened and he settled himself into the seat. Jumin paused when he saw her, and she put on a big fake grin.

“Vivere?”

“Hey, Juju!” she said, comically bright. He immediately became suspicious. She didn’t blame him. “How are you? How was your day?”

“What happened?” his brow creased. “Should we cancel plans today?”

“No-no-no it’s not serious at all, absolutely not.” She giggled, high pitched and really stupid sounding. Ugh, she hated when that happened. “In fact, I have a gift for you!”

With the same sort of eyebrow-language, they lifted almost into his hairline, and then he chuckled. “Ah, my birthday.”

Viv practically lunged at him, hands grabbing onto the lapel of his suit. “I’m so sorry! The day just passed by and I didn’t even realize it! And I hate getting people gifts that don’t mean anything, and I didn’t want to just get you another tie or something –“

“Viv,” he stopped her, gently, with a bit of a laugh still in his voice. “It’s fine. I wasn’t expecting anything.”

“Come on, you should expect it, from me at least.”

Taking the wrists of hands that were crumpling his suit, he pulled her forward and dipped down himself to press their mouths together. Viv felt herself melt almost completely, anxiety bleeding away, succumbing to the force with which he pushed his tongue against hers. A massage of slick muscle, the tickle of his tongue over her teeth, the flick against the roof that made her react in half-surprise half-discomfort. As he drew away, he pressed his lips against hers again, the deep intake of a breath.

She sighed, embarrassed, subdued from the shock of it than anything else. How much experience had he had? He shouldn't be able to disrupt her composure the way he had. 

“A wonderful gift,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

“Jumin, that’s not-“

He simply chuckled. “Driver Kim, we can leave. Thank you.”

“Come on,” she frowned, lifting the box into her lap. “Here, take it.”

“If you insist.”

“I do.”

Again that little smile directed her way. She was just glad he wasn’t upset.

When he had unwrapped and lifted the object out of the box, he tilted it, looking at it as if he had never seen a jar before. Well, to be fair, it was a custom made hand-blown jar with custom hardware, transparent blue glass with splotches of violet, navy, and magenta. There were tiny raw silver specks inlaid into the glass in small, deliberate clusters of constellations. She figured she should get a container that would be nice enough to use later. Opening it, he reached inside and pulled out one of the pieces of paper that had been shoved tightly-packed into the container.

Carefully, the paper was unfolded, and he spent some time reading what was written there. When he finished, he looked back at the jar, reached inside again, and pulled out a second paper. He started to smile again, and Viv took that as a good sign.

“Does every paper in this jar have…”

“Yeah,” she blushed, brushing her hand through her hair and shrugging, trying to seem as nonchalant as possible.

When she looked up his face was as red as hers felt, a bit more of a genuine smile on her lips. She fiddled with her fingers as he cautiously slid both papers back in among the others, then closed it.

“There’s one for every day for a year,” she confessed, actually sort of embarrassed that she was able to easily write down 365 reasons she thought he was a great person. It was about half romantic and half just nice things about him as a person, she’d done that deliberately. She made sure not to list anything that was about how he looked or money, focusing primarily on his skills and personality, things he worked hard for and the things he accomplished.

“Thank you,” he rotated the jar to take a good look at it, voice quiet. “When did you find the time to do something like this?”

“I, uh, you know, made time for it,” she shrugged. “And, uh, if you want that cat paper, I have a ton of it now. I used as many varieties as I could find.”

He laughed, returning the jar to the box, and setting it in a safe place on the floor of the towncar so that it wouldn’t slide around.

“And that’s a custom jar, I had it hand-blown,” she felt like she had to play up the gift. He was just so quiet. Viv's nervous fingers curling into her skirt. “I’m sorry it’s not like –“

“No,” he hastily stopped her then, reaching over to take her hand, forced them to stop wrinkling her skirt. “Don’t apologize. It’s wonderful. I was… just thinking about you sitting there writing out each and every note and I…” He smiled sheepishly, cleared his throat. “Have you thought about what kind of engagement ring you’d like?”

“I haven’t really had the time to look at any, to be honest.” She looked at the jar. “I’ve been really busy.”

“I suppose it’s good that we’re going to look now.”

She nodded. She’d dreaded this shopping trip for a week, but in order to have the ring in time for the ‘betrothal ceremony’ aka engagement party where he was required to formally propose, they had to go as soon as possible. The thing was, out of all the jewelry she wore, as a rule she never wore rings. She didn’t even know what the correct size would be, so that was the primary reason they were going to the store before dinner. They were cumbersome in her profession unless they were made for a specific purpose.

Maybe she was being high maintenance, but she thought she would mention it. “How would you feel about it if I didn’t wear it that often?”

His brows rose, looking down at her, giving her that incredulous look.

“Ok, but, let me explain. Dad likes to buy jewelry for me. I used to have a couple larger stoned rings, and I don’t know if I’m just clumsy or just really hard on my hands, but I’ve definitely scratched up the neck of my guitar, gotten it tangled in strings and busted open my hands on drums. I have pretty thick calluses but that means they just rip off whole and I can’t work for a while.”

Jumin frowned at her, examining her rough-worn hands as if he was looking at them for the first time.

“I guess I just don’t know what to do as a solution. I could take it off every time I play an instrument but I’m terrified of losing it or it getting stolen if I put it in a pocket or my purse. I can imagine setting it down on like, the keyboard and losing it, or like, leaving it on my desk in my office or in the production studio. I feel like I rarely go a day without picking up an instrument even if I’m in the office that day, so…” she sighed. “I’m really scared of losing it.”

Instead of saying anything, he leaned down to her to kiss her temple. She blushed again.

“I was also thinking of maybe getting two? Like, the one I’ll wear to events or the office if I’m absolutely sure I don’t have some work to do, and the one I don’t have to feel bad if it gets lost. I don’t want you to spend a ridiculous amount on a ring, because I know you will and I can’t stop you, and lose it. It’s supposed to be like, the most important piece of jewelry I’ll ever have.”

“Vivere…” He looked so soft in that moment, eyes warm and lips in an almost-smile, shoulders round and body leaning to her. He let go of her hand to wrap his arms around her, pressing his face to her neck, a hand brushing the loose tendrils of hair from her face. “I love you, Viv.”

She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out, stuck interpreting love as  _love_ instead of 'love' with the way he held her. She didn't want to answer it with just the simple repeating of the phrase like they'd done since they were kids, the love for a friend. It felt disingenuous towards the way his voice lowered and rumbled in a new, very different way around those words. Undecided, and heart pounding almost out of her chest, she curled her arms around his neck and tucked herself into him.

“You don’t have to worry so much, you can wear it when you want to. I’d never be upset with you for not wearing your ring all the time,” he continued after a moment, and she wondered if she'd messed up something special.

“What’s gotten into you, Ju?” she laughed softly into his hair, opting to tease him instead of acknowledging her own feelings.

“It’s not often I feel so cherished,” he confided, voice almost a whisper.

“Jumin,” she sighed his name softly. “Jumin, I want to make you to feel cherished every day.”

At least she could admit to that, something she'd feel whether or not they were friends or lovers. 

Wasn't it too soon? Shouldn't it take more time? Hadn't she gotten over him, anyway?

Maybe it was just hidden away all that time after all.

 

***

 

“Han has been talking about the two of you nonstop,” Mr. Lee informed them while they ate. “I have been, honestly, wondering about how much he’s been saying is true and how much has been exaggerated.”

“He likes to exaggerate most things,” complained Pao Kim, turning his attention to Jumin and Viv, looking bored as he propped his chin on his hand. “You do not need to pretend to like each other. Han thinks you’re the most loving couple in history. I doubt he even knows you, Miss Park.”

Mr. Kim sounded as if he was trying to open an opportunity for Viv to act more herself, but Jumin recognized he would be setting them up for failure at the table of six of C&R’s biggest investors. When Viv said they would need to ‘perform’ their affection for each other, he didn’t realize it would be so soon, and here at a supposed business dinner. These men were more interested in his marriage than they were in business. Is that why Lee insisted he bring her?

Jumin wondered where his father was.

“Yes, Jumin breaks off every match his father finds for him, anyway,” Jinho Gyun snickered. “It’s astounding that we’re getting to meet you in this capacity, Miss Park.”

One of the men that Viv was likely talking about when she complained about being accosted at work: he was a known playboy, especially with other people’s wives. It was strange to Jumin that people let him continue to do what he wanted. Or likely they had tried to hold him accountable and he had paid them off. He had one of the best lawyers in the country.

Jung-sik Nam was good friends with Mr. Kim, both of them vocal in their opinions about marriage and their disapproval of Chairman Han’s relationships. Most of C&R’s stockholders where in their age range, and took their opinion as law. “The only reason you don’t know her is because you haven’t been around for as long as we have. We’ve watched this young lady grow up,” Nam mentioned in a condescending tone. 

Nam and Gyun hated each other in particular. Jumin held in a sigh. Being between those two men was an exercise in self-restraint.

“There must be a reason Han choose to match the two of you,” Chul-woo Choi mentioned, directing his comment to Viv as if he was asking a question, leaning forward to put himself further into Viv’s space. He was one of those people who would talk to you a few inches from your face.

Viv put a hand on his shoulder, not pushing him, but letting him know he was too close, as she began to speak in an disarmingly sweet voice. It was a tone he didn’t hear often, only at their father’s functions with businessmen such as these. “I can’t speak for Mr. Han, Mr. Choi.”

“You’re right, I should ask him. I wonder where he is. He said he’d be here tonight.”

“Likely with yet another new girlfriend. That actress from ‘ _Unless You Come Home’_ , or something,” groused Kim.

Jumin sighed. Of course.

Viv curled her fingers around his hand, squeezing gently. She didn’t turn to look at him, or stop speaking. Just a touch that relaxed him. Less than thirty seconds, she let him go.

“So, what do you do, Miss Park? I’ve heard you have a career of your own,” Choi continued.

“I’m a songwriter and talent manager for Ars Moriendi. Specifically, I manage Carpe Diem. Though, for the last year Father has been training me for a more administrative position in light of preparing for his retirement.” She laughed softly. “Basically, I do everything.”

“That was the rock group that had three top songs last year, right?” Lee asked. “The guy with the silver hair is the lead singer?”

Viv grinned like a proud mother. “Yes, those are my boys. They debuted right when Father got sick, and he was managing them personally. They got transferred to me, because I… well, because I’d been there the whole time anyway and had basically become my father’s assistant at that point. And I’d co-wrote that album. ”

“Co-wrote? Did Daesuk write on that album, too?” Nam sounded interested, an old fan of her father’s when he was still performing over thirty years ago.

“No, actually, the boys wrote the album with me, and Seven did all the post-production. Ah, he’s the one with red hair.”

“I know this is a strange question,” Lee leaned forward, almost knocking over his glass. “His hair isn’t actually that color, is it?”

She laughed, “The guy with the silver hair and the guy with the red hair, that’s their natural color. The blonde is dyed.”

“Whoa.”

“I heard you were signed as an artist at one point,” Gyun pointed out. The way he stared at her was very disconcerting.

Viv just nodded. “I was signed for an idol contract when I was sixteen, but when I got accepted to Julliard it was decided I would a better asset to the company by focusing completely on my studies and bringing back what I learned to production, so my contract was altered to accommodate whatever new capacity I’d end up in when I returned.”

“That’s interesting. So you did not come back to step into the spotlight? I suppose you would have to get some work done if you wanted that,” Gyun shrugged, motioning to his chest.

Jumin really did not like that. He took a deep breath and his shoulders rolled back, sitting straighter in his chair. Her hand returned to his.

Viv rose one brow at the man, as if she wasn't offended but amused. “What an uncouth thing to say. Mr. Gyun. I figured you a bit classier than that.”

“Don't set your expectations too high, Viv” Jumin leveled a look at Gyun, one that made it clear he was on Jumin’s shit list. This was the wrong woman to mess with.

Gyun met his stare, as if he was issuing a challenge. Nam turned up his nose at the man, and Kim sent him a glare.

When Jumin pulled Viv’s hand to guide her attention to himself, a few of the businessmen followed suit but his whole awareness had already switched to her when she turned and leaned into his arm. He dipped his head to whisper in her ear, absently swirling the tendril of hair left loose to frame her face as the rest of it was pulled tight into an intricate bun.

“I’m sorry, Viv –“

“-don’t apologize for him. I’m fine.”

“But—”

“You’re getting upset, Juju.”

“Of course.”

“But you're fine?”

“Yes, I'm fine.”

When Viv began to lean away again, Jumin attempted to stop her and press his lips to her temple, which she dodged with a coy smile. The very Vivere-like behavior instantly made him smile in return, comforting him more than landing the kiss would have.

“We haven’t heard anything from you, Jumin,” Kim noted. “You haven’t spoken much this entire dinner.”

“Excuse me.” His head bowed shortly, a small apology. “I am not one for small talk.”

“True,” Nam laughed, nodding. “How do you feel about your betrothal?”

Viv was talking to a waiter, who nodded and walked away. Jumin wasn’t sure how to answer that in an way that wouldn’t be picked apart, commented on, or required proof. He didn’t realize he had answered the question when he looked at her, a smile spreading over his lips and this gentle look in his eyes. Viv turned her attention back to him and a finger rose to tap him playfully on the nose, which wrinkled in response.

He always forgot the emotionless businessman persona when interacting with her.

“Yes, Jumin, how _do_ you feel about your betrothal?” she teasingly repeated.

He hummed this noncommittal sound, reaching for her ear to pull. “I think I’ll have to find a new one. This one is determined to make me happy.”

“How dare you?” she scoffed, her lips curling as she tried not to smile. “My one goal in life is to make you miserable. Are you saying I’m a failure?”

“The worst failure. I presume it’ll continue that way.”

She grabbed her bottom lip between her teeth as she grinned, eyes sparkling in the golden restaurant lights. “I never turn down a challenge, Mr. Han.”

Jumin stopped the hand that was about to grab her chin, catching himself before he pulled her in to kiss her, feeling his ears flare. He heard one of the men chuckle while another quipped “I never thought I’d see the day!”

Instead, Jumin wrapped his arm around Viv’s back. “I’m quite content,” he addressed Mr. Kim, finally answering his question.

Kim laughed. “Maybe Han wasn’t exaggerating after all.”

 

***

 

“Isn’t this a bit much?”

Viv craned her chin up, attempting to look at her hands that were being tied with a gold silk ribbon. Someone else was spending way too much time arranging her hair on the floor around her. She looked up at Jumin, whose tie was being adjusted for the thousandth time. She’d always denied requests for doing stuff like this for the company, even when they needed extras. The most she'd do was background singing on tracks or demos. Jumin, though, thrived in the spotlight. If RFA stayed together, looking in hindsight, he would have been the breakout star if they could get him to sing.

He glanced down at her, and Viv watched as his eyes roved up, stopped at her hands, and his face flushed the darkest shade of red she’d probably ever seen. Viv couldn’t help it; she laughed. “Maybe not, never mind.”

“Excuse me, may I have my water? Thank you,” he called over to one of the assistants. He drank while someone else was rolling up his sleeves neatly and pinning them in place near his elbows. They did so in such a way that the small pin that served as a cuff link was visible with the logo of the company who was providing the clothes for C&R's Jewelry company's advertisements. One of the people working on his outfit bent down next to her and tugged down the extremely short black dress she was wearing, then pulled up the thigh-high boots.

“Cross your ankles for me, dear,” the photographer was looking at a screen while one of the camera operators adjusted the position of the overhead camera, snapping a few test pictures to monitor the lights. “Clear the set, please. We’re going to get started. Remember the shoes are the main point of this – let’s get a matte lip on her? Where is the ribbon that’s supposed to be tied around her leg?”

Several people rushed in to make the fixes that he’d requested while Viv blinked up at the lights. The whole thing was just awkward, though she tried to ignore the feeling of a hundred people staring at her. It felt like being on stage again, thousands of people expecting her to be amazing and she was just normal.

When she'd offered to help, this wasn't what she'd signed up for. 

“Sorry, I don’t really know what to do, really,” she laughed nervously, looking at the person standing on the ladder above her.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, no one is a born model. This is your first time, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah. I had to a few times as a kid, you know when dad was still singing. But not like this.”

He huffed a chuckle and shook his head. “God that makes me feel old. I still listen to his music. He was big when I was in middle school and first starting caring about that sort of thing. Anyway, you’ll do fine.”

“Ok, thanks.” She took a deep inhale, trying to force herself to stop holding her breath.

“Just relax. Adjust whatever you need to get comfortable. There you go. You can bring your arms down and roll out your shoulders. Better?”

“Yeah,” not being in such a sexual position made her feel a bit better, letting her sink into the floor a bit more.

“Ah, there we are.” The photographer also seemed to let out that nervous tension he was holding. People got like that when Jumin was around, though sometimes with her to some extent when they were familiar with her father. She heard the shutter close several times. “Uncross your feet? Press your hands into your lap, like you’re trying to keep someone from looking up your skirt. Jim, will you get a close up on her hands? We need a few images of that ring.”

“It’s sorta big, it’s slipping around my finger.”

“Lyn? Can you do something about that?” A young woman ran over and gently tucked a piece of paper between the ring and her finger to force it to stay in place, then helped arrange the silk strips and her hands so that it was hidden, the camera operator coming over with a different camera and taking images of her hands In her lap.

“Easy, right?” he approached her a few steps, hands crossed over his chest. “You’re doing great. Just keep following instructions, ok? I’ll tell you to make adjustments until it’s the shot we need. Stay relaxed, and it’ll go quickly.”

“Alright, thank you, Mr. Ghim.”

“Please, Sungho. Formalities make this way more difficult,” he nodded, disappearing behind the wall of screens again. “Alright, let’s keep going? Are your shoulders ok?”

“Yes, they’re fine.”

Jumin was sitting off to the side, a hand curled over his mouth, water bottle hanging limply from the other hand while he observed the scene. Her attention was brought back up to the camera, and she attempted to blink away the afterimage of lights out of her eyes before the photographer began to walk her through each movement.

Her hands started from her waist, crawled up her body, instructed to lift, arch, through the small of her back, keeping her shoulders as much to the ground as she could before they lifted. When she did, dropping her head back, elongating the neck, as if craning her head out for a lover’s touch. The previous attention to detail about her hair created the perfect cascade of deep brown inkiness streaming down onto the ground. The strain of the movement helped the taught sort of tension that was only released by the explosion of pleasure, though for Viv, it was merely being allowed to finally lay back down, muscles and bones popping from disuse.

It'd been much too long since she exercised, yikes.

The whole thing had to be repeated twice, before the photographer had the pictures the 'client' wanted.

They eventually brought her hands down to her mouth where she captured the edge of the gold restraints in her teeth and pulled, not to remove but to tighten. She tried to ignore it the best she could when the assistant photographer used the opportunity to hone in on the ring on her finger, laying her hands in different positions across her mouth.

Then that part was over, thankfully, and several hands came to help her up, untied, readjusted. Someone brushed out her hair again, her shoulders were rubbed through, before her hands repositioned behind her back and sitting on her knees. The boots were black velvet with gold bottoms and heel, the silk strands a perfectly matching tone of gold and the ring a large gaudy yellow diamond with an inlaid gold band.

“This might have been a bad idea,” Jumin stated morosely as he kneeled in front of her per the photographer’s guidance. She was prompted to stand up on her knees while he took hold of the silk restraints, pulling them tight at her back in his hand. “Is this ok?”

“Yah, feels fine. What’s a bad idea?”

“Everything. The interview, the advertisements, the featuring Versace's clothing for C&R's Jewelry company relaunch.” He seemed deeply upset, though she had no idea why. “I am not sure I like the idea of anyone else seeing you this way.”

“Is that all?” she laughed and he flushed, head dipping to press his forehead to the crest of her collarbone. “You approved this campaign yourself.” 

"Yes, before we were cast as the models."

"So? _You_ cast us as the models."

“Yes. I thought it was a good idea at the time, I didn't realize you would...” He sighed, exasperated. After a moment, he continued, having begun to tie the loose ends back together. “I will keep my complaints to myself... except while I like Versace's suits, I could do without this tie.”

“That tie is horrifying.”

“I knew you’d agree.” He chuckled, helping her stand with the request of the photographer, then pulling down the edges of the dress until only a sliver of skin was visible. One hand threaded through hers, tangling in the ribbon, while the other held the back of her thigh.

“You don’t have to actually kiss her skin, just open your mouth a little. Look aloof. There we go – you’re doing great, Jumin. Make sure to get his rings. The jewelry is the point of the photoshoot. Do you have Vivere’s second outfit ready? Make sure that coat is steamed, it wrinkles like hell. We’re only going to do a few more then we’re going to get her out of those bindings. Are you ok, Vivere?”

“I’m good!”

“That’a girl. Jumin, stretch your legs out and help her to straddle your lap.”

Jumin glanced up at her, the red that cusped his ears the only indication of feeling anything. They had to rearrange his legs until she could put her feet directly under her, preventing the dress from creeping up, him supporting her weight as she moved around. His fingers curled around her ribcage, then back through her arms to her shoulders, a gentle, prodding with his fingers through the fabric.

Viv couldn’t help but feel the flare of heat and tension from her knees to her neck, puffing a breath against his ear. “Sorry, Juju, I know this is a bit –“

“Don’t apologize; I should be the one to say that to you.” He lightly cleared his throat, lifted his eyes to look at her. “Vivere, I—“

Instructions for him to move his hands down to cup her ass startled them both, had them both blushing. While it wasn’t as if they had a lack of physical contact, none of it was in the context of this sort of sexual tension. The only thing that had happened thus far was that kiss in the car and, well, it told her a lot. Much in the way of what he was capable of, at least.

He breathed deeply and exhaled slowly as if he was trying to maintain the stoic aloofness he was so known for- she could practically hear his jaw creek as he ground down on his teeth, fingers just barely touching her.

“You’re uncomfortable,” she stated, worried.

Jumin hummed one of those little sounds of confirmation, a small nod of acknowledgement. “I have not yet touched you this way, and so –“

“Yeah,” she followed up the thought with a bit of a laugh, quiet against the stubble of his jaw. They had left his face just unrefreshed from his shave that morning, not quite more than an indication of shadow against his pale skin.

His head tilted into hers, she felt his eyelashes brush over her cheek. “I have a feeling this day will be difficult to shake from my mind for quite some time.”

Her lips formed words without checking with her brain if she should. “Then don't.”

He was told to take a hand and push her hair to the side, over the alternate shoulder, her hair gathering between them. His nose nuzzled under her jaw, pushing her head to the side, not kissing – never really pursing against her skin – but speaking with his mouth against her neck. “Please don’t tempt me, Viv.”

“I want to tempt you,” she countered, skin tingling, the world falling away and her focus narrowing on him.

“ _Sujin_ ,” he reprimanded, only making her push harder, a flare that quickly burst from budding interest to compulsion.

“Do you want to tie me up?”

She _felt_ his reaction, beneath her, around her. The crack of teeth slipping against each other from being ground too hard, the almost silent rumble through his chest that lasted a split second when he huffed an exhale through his throat. His lips pressed deliberately into a hard line, not unlike that forced blank face of frustrated disinterest during a business meeting, but this time more pronounced, with lines of compression at the edges of his lips. Satisfied with the result of her teasing and equally intrigued with the possible results, she laughed quietly at him.

“Let’s get you out of those ribbons,” Sungho’s voice cut through the thick air before Jumin could respond, who immediately started pulling open the ribbons to release her hands. Viv rolled her shoulders and her head, his hands carefully pressing into her wrists. “We’re going to do some solo stuff with Jumin while Viv gets changed, ok? Will someone help her up?”

Things moved in a whirlwind at that point, Jumin being taken to a set outside and Viv changing into another all black ensemble with a long leopard print trench coat that matched Jumin’s tie. It was an overlarge sweater that almost reached her knees, something she normally would have picked out herself, paired with black rain boots. The gold ribbon was retied around her thigh for a bit of continuity, a couple extra rings littered her right hand and a couple of earrings for her full ear of piercings.

When she was brought outside, the scene was set up as if it was raining, with deliberate puddles and the ground was wet. The sky was already overcast, which made it a good day to get a shot that seemed plausible. They were using a section of fencing that had been covered entirely with grey-green ivy and speckled with black roses. In front of one section was a black circular keyboard.

“I’d like you to perform a couple of songs just for pictures sake. Get into it like you would if you were playing alone just jamming out, sing and play, or just play, or just sing, it doesn’t matter. We thought it would be easier if you were able to do it like you normally would. Musicians in action always look great, and we have the tech to capture it.”

Viv shrugged, knowing she didn’t need to put an all-out performance but really get into her space and do what she did best. It put her at ease. “Alright, that sounds good. Uh, let me set this up. Give me a minute.”

A heavy beat with deep drums like a taiko festival and the ticking of a wooden bell set the backbeat, where she changed the keyboard settings to something funky like a synth organ. She recorded each layer and saved it into the keyboard. This was one of her favorite types of synth-keyboard mixes because it had tons of space to save self-made beats and let her set up something like a DJ’s board in one section of the keyboard while she played over it. She was able to get someone to find her some over-the-ear headphones, which should have come with the keyboard if she knew the model correctly.

“Alright… go!” She laughed, nervous. She hadn’t had a crowd of people like this in front of her for years.

Then she began to sing the song she’d pulled out for the advertising campaign with a bit of a club twist. After the first few bars the people around her melted out of her vision; it was just herself and the music. She played it as if it was the blood in her veins, the energy ramping up from almost nothing but the sung melody and a light rhythm until it was time to turn on the first version of the beat. A countermelody was added halfway through the verse, a heavier beat coming in at the chorus. Switching from side to side of the keyboard force her to twist while the beat naturally bounced through her. Unable to do anything about her hair with her hands constantly on the keyboard, she had to flip her hair back once in a while. Some parts of the song she added stomping her feet, a unique sound with the wet ground.

It was over before she’d really even gotten started, was the one song enough? He’d asked for a couple. Several people clapped and she pushed her hair out of her face before bowing in thanks to the people who applauded her, and ducked out from inside the keyboard.

“That was fantastic,” Sungho was looking through the footage, already setting aside images he loved from the few minute session. “There’s so many here I can’t decide. Did you get video of that, too?”

His assistant nodded. “Yeah we got the whole thing. I wonder if we can use it for the campaign somehow.”

“We’ll contact you to negotiate a new contract for use if we end up wanting to do an extended campaign with you, don’t worry,” he grinned at her. “You’re amazing, but I shouldn’t be surprised. Why don’t you have an album? Your voice is so –“

Thankfully the exchange was halted by another assistant coming over to let them know Jumin was finished and ready for the next part of the shoot. They fixed her hair first, then led her to where they had already cleared out the keyboard so that she could stand at the other end of the fence. She assumed they were making sure to get shots that could be used in spreads instead of only one pages. At the other end, Jumin stood patiently standing facing the fence with his hands behind his back, gold silk ribbons tying his hands together.

She couldn’t help the excitement that came over her at that. He turned his head to look at her and met her eyes, narrowing them at her. Viv grinned in return, then faced the camera again, trying to school her expression as best as she could into something neutral. They asked her to stand nonchalant, wanting a lackadaisical attitude to contrast Jumin’s rigidity. She stretched her arms behind her head and leaned her weight onto one hip, crossing her legs to one side so that the coat swung to the other. Then she bent down into a crouch, putting her elbow on her knees and her hand in her chin as if she was bored. After a few moments, she began to dance in place, making a steady beat of splattering water everywhere. Since the shoes were a major selling point, they spent extra time getting images of the water splashing up around her feet.

Jumin in the meantime was either rotated towards her or away from her, and at one point crouching while she was standing, hands sometimes laying against his lap, or some other stoic or lazy position.

“Look, Juju, I have an equally horrible coat now!” she quipped jokingly, coaxing a grin from him once they’d been led back together. Viv had to use the stool provided so they were a similar height, which made them both laugh more. His arms coaxed to circle her waist, the ties rearranged, backed him up to the ivy-covered fence, and left them to their own devices for a moment while Sungho and the production crew adjusted lighting and moved various equipment.

“It is at least quite fetching on you, Viv,” he chuckled.

“You’re only saying that because we’re getting married. What do you really think?”

“Would you happen to have a lighter?”

“Juju!”

Viv laid her hands flat on Jumin’s chest and he rested his wrists at the small of her back, their noses touching while they smiled together, the previous tension dispelled in only the way two close, long-time friends could dismiss it so easily. They’d been in enough awkward situations in their lives that not much phased them, too many promises laid out between them that created a bridge to protect a hardened friendship. Even as she leaned in and he swept down, pulled her in and squeezed, her smile against his brow, the comfort of familiarity dismissed the need for attraction. The picture of utter contentment.

“Got it,” Sungho randomly announced, and from the way both of them looked at each other and around, they hadn’t realized that anything was going on at all, until they were quickly separated and rearranged for the next part of the shoot.

Their positions were switched, where she was back up into the fence, hair tangling in ivy and roses, Jumin’s arms under her thighs and his weight keeping her pressed to the fence.

“It seems like I really only need to put the two of you in the right orientation and whatever interaction happens also ends up being picture perfect. I need a good kiss out of you two, though, the client insists. Jewelry is sold with a bit of romance,” the photographer was rambling, adjusting the cameras, lights, and handing Viv the silk ties that used to be around Jumin’s wrists.

“A kiss.” Jumin echoed, under his breath, eyes directed down to her lips. Viv looked up at him, face flushing. She warned him before she didn’t want this sort of thing happening, but that ‘first’ real kiss had come and gone. She couldn’t complain about it now. There were even a few public ones, at this point, but for the _camera_? Both of them inhaled deep enough for the other to feel it, and shared a nervous smile. At least both of them found this as unnatural as it felt.  

And so for a moment, they couldn’t meet each other’s eyes.

To Viv’s surprise, he was the one who moved first. His weight against the fence holding her up, she bounced her feet against the back of his thighs before he pushed her up with an annoyed click of his tongue. The hand he’d removed from beneath her captured a thick lock of her hair. The movement arrested her attention, she found herself watching a curling line of hair spilling over his fingers until he grasped the strands tightly, and then she looked up to his face to see what he was actually doing.

He hadn’t rose his head, not really, just his eyes. Captured and pulled a lungful of air right out of her with orbs that glittered violet along the edges of gray from the amber cast from the setting evening sun, churned with curiosity, perhaps, or mischievousness, more likely. Lips laid across the strands, watching her carefully as he descended, eyelashes fluttering, creating shadows, little butterfly wings along his skin as his eyes finally lowered to look at the thing he was actually kissing, and smirked when he heard her unable to hold her breath any longer.

Then brushed the hair he’d removed back behind her ear, taking a moment to run his fingers along various shards of metal glinting along the curve, thumb carefully and deliberately snagging the last one, the first hole at the bottom of the lobe. She knew which earring he was paying attention to, a pair of sapphires he’d given to her for her sixteenth birthday that she hadn’t stopped wearing even ten years later. It was astounding to her that he recognized it, and from his bit of a pleased look in his eyes, it was special to him that she still wore them. She watched his gaze slide over to the other ear, finding the matching one there, and its asymmetrical set of holes, only a fraction of the number of places to adorn.

His finger stayed there, looking at her face for something, the smallest bit of a smile in his face – not quite on his mouth, but the lines of his jaw had softened.

“May I?”

“Sure.”

The hand on her ear dropped to her jaw, he canted a look to the side, obviously checking something, someone, cameras likely. He tilted her up to him, lowered his lips to hers, only barely touching them together. He’d tilted her towards the camera, and himself away, let himself slowly stroke fingers across her skin, feeling each other’s breath on their lips, their eyes briefly opening, dazed, to watch another’s eyes and reactions, to search for want in another’s gaze.

Even when he finally slipped their lips together, each moment was obviously strategic. Face rolled just farther away than normal, his lips only enveloped half of hers, a sensual picture of a more heated moment than the one they were sharing – stalled heartbeats and bated breath. Instead of dipping down he pulled her up, extending the line of her neck almost until it was uncomfortable, hands moving back to her jaw, into her hair, pressed to the fence at her shoulders, to not obscure the curve of her throat.

She could hear the photographer, mumbling from behind the computer screen, directing his assistant at the camera, others at the lights, checking each image as it appeared on his screen, the click of his remote, the shuffle of a shutter closing.

He had to lift her up again, higher than before, flowers snagging in her hair and the yank of it forcing her to turn her face away, attempt to relieve the pull on her scalp. Jumin held her down, hand curling in her hair at the base of her head, directing her up and away from where she was caught, before taking the muffled suggestion of the photographer somewhere off to one side who said, “Now her neck,” by leaning down and pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the exposed skin there.

“Close your mouth.”

Viv let her eyes close, felt his lips move against her neck.

“Look here.”

She couldn’t move with his grip in her hair and tangled into the plants. Just as quickly as it had started, it was over, and Jumin was pulling back, allowing people to come in with combs and spray bottles of detangling solution to begin untangling the stiff hair-sprayed to death dry strands of her hair out of the vines of the ivy, his hands back under her legs as he kept her still while they worked as if he’d move the same thing would happen as before and it would become worse.

“Are you ok?” he whispered, cautiously, likely realizing that he had been a bit rough with her.

“I’m ok,” she confirmed, letting herself give him the truly dazed smile that she felt despite the people bustling around them.

The smile he responded with was shy, but also he looked as if he was barely holding himself back from coming close again.

“We can move on to the interview,” Sungho interrupted, coming up to tug at the ends of her hair himself. “You two did great. I would have never thought Mr. Han was a natural? Or perhaps just a show off,” he jokingly patted Jumin on the shoulder, who Viv felt flinch at the contact.

“I admit that I do enjoy showing off that which I am especially proud of,” Jumin replied, the monotone of his voice a joke in itself compared to the way he warmly turned his eyes to Vivere.

“If I were you, I’d be the same way,” Sungho winked at Viv, a good-natured aim to attempt to scrub away the layer of embarrassment that crept up once they were prompted to prepare for the next scene.

Once her hair was released from that stupid fence, they were brought back inside, a simple, clean, and modernly elegant set that was created for the interview. They changed into their own clothes for the interview. Environment deliberately comfortable, cuddling them together at one end of the couch while the interviewer curled her legs under her on the other end of the couch. Sock covered feet rubbed against bare toes, fingers ran through her hair, and when their eyes glittered when they spoke about and to each other it wasn’t because of the brightness of the lights.

 

 

.

 


	4. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First impressions are everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **{Red}** is inspired by Despicable by grandson

“Nice to meet yah, Rika, Jiji’s talked a lot about you. Kinda sucks we’re in different classes.” Sujin kicked her legs along the wooden wall on the outdoor court, watching the guys during soccer practice.

“That’s a cute nickname. Mind if I use it?” Rika rose her eyebrows at her, sort of eyeing her down. Just because the girl was Jihyun’s girlfriend didn’t mean she had to be a brat about him having other female friends.

“Yeah, sure, have at it. I call Jumin ‘Juju’, too, though he might stab you if you tried calling him that.” Sujin shrugged, trying to dissolve the slight hostility just because she was Jiji’s girlfriend. Otherwise she’d tell her off and walk away. “The boys call me Su or Suji most of the time. Feel free.”

“Feels like I gained a whole group of friends just by meeting Jihyun.” Rika sat next to her, head tilting back and she looked up at the sky. “Jiji,” she tried it out, giggling. She had a stupidly pretty laugh, all feminine and cute. Blonde hair down her back and eyes that were lime green that looked almost gold in the sunlight. Sujin found herself feeling jealous and shook it away. “It’s so cute! Sounds just like something a little kid would call him.”

“Yup. When we were little, I couldn’t pronounce Jihyun’s and Jumin’s names so I called them Jiji and Juju.”

“Oh! So it _is_ from when you were children!”

“Yeah, like, from as far back as we can remember. My dad has this framed picture of the three of us over the fireplace when I was two and they were four. That’s legit how far back we’re talkin’.”

“How sweet,” she crooned, her mood visibly lifting. “I wish I had friends like that, that seems so nice.”

Sujin shrugged. “We could be friends like that. We’re like, fourteen, right? We could be friends for the rest of our lives, you have no idea. No reason we can’t start now. We have _decades_ in front of us to be friends.”

Rika looked at Sujin with surprise on her face. “You don’t have a problem with me dating Jihyun? I thought you –“

“Fuck, no way.” She coughed, flushing. “Sorry, I, uh –“

“It’s ok.” She giggled again, crossing her arms over her knees.

“Anyway, I’m not protective of those two. Why should I be? I’m not their baby sitter, and I’m the youngest, that’s not how that shit works. I’m not going to be like that. They don’t belong to me just because we’re practically siblings. No, Rika, you and Jiji be happy. You won’t get any complaints from me.”

A nod of fluffy blonde hair. “I’m grateful you’re on my side. There’s a lot of girls in my class that have been avoiding me because of they hate me dating him.”

Sujin rolled her eyes. “They have crushes on him, he’s kind popular, you know? He’s _really_ pretty, that’s why. None of them know him, though. Just like all the girls after Jumin. He’s an asshole and they’d hate his personality but they go after him cause he’s hot and he has money. They don’t want to get to know them. I just hope you’re different, but I don’t know you, I can’t say yet.”

“Thank you.”

Su put up a pair of hands, as if it was obvious.

“I’m sure you have guys trying to go after you, too,” Rika laughed.

“No way, I’m not pretty enough for that.”

“I think you’re _really_ pretty, like intimidatingly pretty. That’s why I’ve been… I don’t know, kind of weary of Jihyun hanging out with you. Maybe that makes me just as judge-y as those girls who’re upset with me.” She paused with a quiet laugh at herself. “Shoot, that’s not good.”

“Are you sure you don’t need glasses?” Su leveled a look at Rika. She wouldn’t be swayed by compliments, but at least she admit openly she was uncomfortable with them hanging out instead of being passive aggressive about it. Better than nothing.

Rika responded in a mimic of Su’s hand-risen shrug, laughing with the exaggeration.

“Anyway, I heard you sing well. Do you play any instruments?”

“A bit piano, that’s about it. What about it?”

“Jiji keeps talking about having you sing in our band and how pretty your voice is. I hate singing, so like, if you want to come to a couple of our jam sessions, I could, I don’t know, help you improve at the keyboard. I mean, you don’t haveta, but I can at least tell that green-haired idiot I asked you.”

“He hasn’t mentioned it to me…” her head tilted at her. “I wonder why.”

“Cause he’s stupid,” Sujin huffed.

Rika just… stared at her.

“He doesn’t want you to feel pressured into doing something you don’t wanna do. Figured if I asked you, you’d be more likely to say ‘no’ if you actually didn’t want to.”

“That _is_ kind of silly,” Rika agreed. “You’d really teach me to play the keyboard better?”

“Sure thing, or anything else you wanna learn. I mean, to some extent. Well, except, I’m new at the viola myself so I’m not sure I could help with that. None of us know the contrabass, tho, Jumin’s been thinking about picking it up. You know, because Jazz. Or woodwinds. Um, well, Jumin plays flute, but he won’t touch the thing with a ten-foot pole. And Jihyun has been playing with the saxophone but who knows how far he’ll go with that until he gets bored.”

“How did you end up playing so many instruments? That’s insane?”

“Oh? He hasn’t told you?” Rika shook her head no. “So, my mom and Jiji’s mom are both violinists. As soon as all of us were big enough to hold the smallest sized violin, we were all taught to play, and Jiji’s mom was the one who was teaching us. But when she couldn’t anymore, we kind of split off. Jumin picked up the cello and Jihyun switched to the viola and my mom is crazy so she wouldn’t let me switch. But my mom and dad hate each other, so to spite her my Dad taught me to play the guitar. Juju’s real mom is a singer, and she taught him to play the piano back when the boys used to sing in the boys choir at church. And _then_ , Juju’s mom and dad got divorced, and one of his dad’s girlfriends really liked the flute so he made Jumin learn how to play it and that’s why he hates it. And when I taught Juju to play the guitar and he taught me to play the piano, Jiji learned how to play the drums cause Juju really liked the bass and we were like, shit, we should start a rock band cause our moms would hate it. But now we actually really like it so we kept it up.”

Rika’s mouth opened and closed for a moment like a fish, and then she laughed. “I’m so confused.”

“I guess that was a lot.”

“So, basically, you’re all very musically talented.”

Sujin shrugged. “Anyone can learn an instrument. Just so happens our parents are horribly vain and need us to be super children. Speaking of…” taking out her phone, she looked at it to check the time. “Shit, he’s going to be pissed. He hates it when I’m late.”

“Who?” Rika followed her when she stood, walking back into the school building with her.

“Jumin. Our parents make us do this thing where we perform at C&R’s charity parties. Our dads like to show us off and stuff. It’s super annoying, but at least we get the pick the pieces we play. You can sit in if you want.”

“Really?”

Sujin tilted her head with a smile, motioning for Rika to follow, hearing a familiar complaint the moment she opened the door. “You’re late, Su.”

“Yah, well, I had to find a wild Rika,” she replied, retrieving her violin and joining him in a practice room. “I’m trying to convince her to sing in the band.”

His dark eyes lifted to look at Rika, scanning her blankly. “Is she bothering you?”

“No!” Rika exclaimed, seemingly startled, closing the door behind her. “Suji invited me to listen to you two play.”

Jumin rose his eyebrows to Sujin, as if annoyed that she didn’t ask him first, but given the look, he was actually somewhat amused at the nickname. It could be hard to tell with him. “You’re really trying to get her to join, aren’t you?”

“Look, I promised Jiji, alright? She already even plays the piano some. All three of us play the piano now, we can get her where she needs to be.”

“Wouldn’t it be more effective to show her the band instead of our lousy practice?”

Sujin kicked his chair, and he clicked his tongue to reprimand her, readjusting his chair and cello. “Jihyun isn’t _here_ , now is he?”

“Seriously, you don’t have to be here if you don’t want,” Jumin insisted, voice monotone, turning his attention to Rika. “We have band practice on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, plus pretty much all Saturday.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay…” Rika smiled, leaning against the wall.

“I hope you practiced, Juju,” Sujin taunted playfully, bringing her violin to her shoulder, tuning it to one of his open strings.

“I wanted to go over Bach 170, all three movements.” Jumin moved the music stand in front of him out of the way to invite Sujin to move in front of him. She dragged a chair to face him, falling unceremoniously into it.

“He means the cello concerto in A minor. Bach wrote so many pieces that they were given numbers.”

Rika bobbed her head in understanding.

The pair of them gazed at each other for several long moments, until their breathing were in sync, laying their bows on the strings at the same time. Jumin took a sharp, audible breath, and they began to play together perfectly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Viv almost shrieked when a hand tugged at her and she stumbled back. A pair of hands grasped her shoulders, keeping her from falling to the ground. Their hands stayed there, gripping hard. A flat, hard, chest. Way too much cologne. He was breathing really hard. Viv looked up at the stranger’s face.

His mouth had practically dropped to the floor and was frozen in place, which would explain why he’d stopped with his hand still gripping her shoulders like a vice. With an audible click, his mouth shut, and with her in tow, stepped back, simultaneously apologizing to her.

“Director H-h-han,” he stammered, “I’m not sure what’s going on but-“

Han? She finally turned to look at the person in front of her, who was bent over slightly and trying to reach at her, a pair of hands hovered towards her ears. Then they made fists and sharply pulled away.

The bustle of the street flooded back to her head, almost overwhelming her with the noise. She must have been so deep in thought that she didn’t realize she had headphones in.

“Juju?”    

Jumin chuckled. “Ah, here’s the problem.” He swung the pair of earbuds by the coord with purpose. “I should have known. I thought you heard me.”

The man who was trying to protect her didn’t back off even though he knew who Jumin was. He was either brave or stupid, she wasn't sure which. She gently pat the hands on her shoulders until they released her, and smiled reassuringly for the man who was obviously somewhere between anxious and terrified. “He’s fine! Thank you, sir.”

He looked down at her, his hands hovering in the air which he flexed once in astonishment before dropping them to his sides, bowing deeply. “I’m so sorry, I –“

“Please, don’t apologize, we need more people willing to stand up for what's right,” Jumin’s head shook, a hand shuffling in his pocket and producing a business card. “In fact, please take my card. I presume you already work for C&R if you call me Director Han.”

When the business card exchanged hands she stepped forward and into Jumin’s reach, immediately being wrapped up in an arm. That ever un-characteristic smile spread over Jumin’s lips when his hold on her became tight and secure. The spectacle seemed to startle the stranger even more, who hastily shoved the business card in his pocket. Vivere laughed. She couldn’t help it. Jumin had this effect on people and every person reacted differently. 

"Ah, yes, Sir, in accounts."

"If there is anything I can do for you, let me know."

"I— I will!" 

“Walking around with music blasting in your ears isn’t very safe, Miss Park,” Jumin teased affectionately. He took one of the headphones he still held and twisted it into his ear.

She nodded her goodbye to the still-stunned man and lifted her head to Jumin with an expression that was full of fake displeasure. He shouldn't do things like that, frightening people and such. She doubted he'd actually call Jumin for anything, he should have offered something more concrete if he wanted to reward the man. Though she wasn't sure he earned more than a 'thank you' for being a decent human.

“You ass, he's clearly freaked out!”

He made that humming sound that was mostly noncommittal acknowledgement. "I'm confident that he will take the opportunity when he sees fit, he works for C&R, after all."

"Ugh, you're insufferable." 

He laughed as if he’d expected nothing less, arm draped lightly over her shoulder to keep her close, probably to make sure the headphone didn’t get yanked from his ear. Without another word he took her bag from her and tucked it under his arm.

“What are you doing?” She laughed, her head shaking. “This isn’t the way to the office.”

“We’re headed to the same meeting. Did you not realize?”

“I didn’t know you were on that project. I'm not really, so I didn't get a roster or anything.”

“I’m Project Manager, of course I am. Technically speaking, C&R purchased SND and it will be absorbed by AM. Therefore, I am unfortunately required to attend. I'm more surprised as to why you're going to be there,” he laughed.

"Dad wants me to understand the business side of things, so I've been forced to go to these sorts of things once in a while."

"Understandable. It's a complicated case in particular. Likely good to learn from. You can ask me questions if you don't understand something."

She groaned. That meant she would need to pay attention in the meeting.

Thankfully changing the subject, Jumin tapped the bud in his ear. “90’s r&b?”

“I’m re-familiarizing myself with the sound since it’s starting to get popular again.”

“Is it?”

“Specifically, her style of perfect fourths instead of major thirds. Some of the rhythms, too. There are some interesting 70’s style rock motifs that’s seeping into the pop scene, too. Musicians are always re-contextualizing its influences, but it’s always interesting to hear what grabs people’s attention and when.”

He hummed, a hand pressed over his ear to block out ambient noise to listen more closely to the track she had on repeat. She was referring to a chord progression that was sort of rare in pop music and probably more commonly found in chorales or western early scared music. “It amazes me that you can distinguish that simply by listening to it.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been writing music for a decade now, Juju. It’s sort of part of my job. Besides, I’m sure you’d be able to pick things up like that if you were able to continue playing music.”

“Likely,” he agreed.

He was a particularly talented musician though she wasn’t sure if it was natural or by practice and diligence. She assumed it was a combination of both, since he had discipline and persistence in everything else he tried. There wasn't much to say this early in the morning, or maybe it was because Viv wasn't a morning person. Viv absently followed him to the conference room, her thoughts on musical influences, past the room they would be meeting in and turning into the next hallway. Using her distraction against her, he pulled her in and kissed her.

The way he did so made her sure her lipstick was messed up by time he'd let her go, and even then he didn't release her. She licked her lips and almost winced. Sore already?

"Good morning," he practically purred. Jumin leaned down to press his forehead against hers, grinning playfully when she pulled back and attempted to wrestle herself away from the hands on her wrists. When did he grab them? 

“Stop it, we’re at work!” she hissed, dodging another attempt to kiss her in the middle of the hallway. They were alone, but she was sure someone could hear them, the conference room was feet away around the corner. People going in were bound to overhear them.

“You shouldn’t neglect your husband, he may need to look elsewhere for affection," he teased.

“Good thing you’re not my husband yet.”

“That’s it. I am going back to my first love.”

“Poor Elizabeth the Third. She doesn’t deserve that kind of torture,” she sighed heavily as if she was truly lamenting the plight of his cat, though she allowed him to grasp her around the waist when he attempted to pull her close for a second time. It was hard to resist when he was being cute and playful. She was finding out that Jumin was a morning person, probably from waking up everyday earlier than necessary to make sure everything was perfect. She, on the other hand, was not.

“Sujin,” he scolded, trying to contain his laughter and keep a look of displeasure. It wasn’t working. “My Elizabeth the Third loves me unconditionally, unlike you.”

“You’re right.”

He scoffed, arms sliding along where’d he anchored his hands on her hips, enveloping her. She didn’t fight him, but tilted her head back to look at his face, hands cupping his cheeks. Jumin nudged his nose against hers. “Cruel woman.”

"It's early."

That brought out that delightfully genuine chuckle, one that she was hearing more often but was still rather rare. 

Viv pressed her lips to the tops of his cheekbones, then the tip of his nose. Voices began to get louder as people gathered in the conference room and the sound of them talking escaped from the door every time it opened. She pulled him down to her, slowly, lazily kissing him until both of them needed to pull away to breathe. 

"Good Morning," she returned, at last.

He straightened his posture and smoothed the lapels of his suit jacket, fixed his cuff links. Viv took a mirror from her purse and fixed her lipstick, glad she had half a mind to start carrying those individually packed mini make up wipes. One last kiss was dropped to her forehead before the usual hand at the small of her back settled, escorting her to their meeting.

 

_***_

 

_{Red}_

_Red looks back at me, they’re the same as mine_  
_when I look at you I want to steal you away_  
_peel away the skin to find what’s inside_  
_I know it’s the same heart with the same beat_  
_when I see your bones I want to steal you away_

 _Come with me_  
_I’ll take you to hell where everything is red_  
_Come with me (come with me)_  
_Let’s go to hell where everything is red_

 _Breathe._  
_let me see your blood as it blushes from blue_  
_the unfurling of your lungs_  
_peel away the skin to watch them expand_  
_I know it’s the same_  
_inhale, exhale, the rhythm in time_  
_the swirl of your breath in the cold night_  
_I need to steal you away_

 _Let me be honest_  
_if you love me, you must be_  
_just as fucked up as me_

 _Come with me_  
_I’ll take you to hell where everything is red_  
_Come with me (come with me)_  
_Let’s go to hell where everything is red_

 _Come with me_  
_I’ll take you to hell where everything is red_  
_Come with me (come with me)_  
_Let’s go to hell where everything is red_

 _You’re crazy, baby_  
_(Ahahahahaha!)_

Viv tilted her head back, listening to the three boys perform the song she’d finished writing a few days before for the album they were supposed to be working on. Things had been so hectic that she hadn’t been able to spend the time with them that she should, but their promotion schedule wasn’t due to begin until late November, and that was really for a pre-album single release that would build some hype for the work they’d publish in March. And that song was going to be much softer this this one, since it was Christmas season and all. Still, they needed to start writing and producing the music. Even though things didn’t normally take that long for idols, Carpe Diem weren’t _idols_ , they were _musicians._

It was why she hadn’t passed them off onto another manager. Yes, even though they were her friends.

“You know what, this really just needs a fourth part. I just don’t really know who to get to play guitar,” she sighed, rubbing her fingers through her hair.

“I mean, we could hold some auditions,” Zen shrugged, and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “But I hate the idea of bringing someone in that we don’t know at all. It’ll throw off our vibe.”

“Yeah, that’s sort of uncomfortable,” Seven nodded. “Unless they’re hot, right, Zen?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter, they have to be able to _play_. Who is as good as we need them to be and aren’t already in a band?”

“Plenty,” Viv crossed her arms. “Look, that’s my job so I’ll start scouting. If you’ve hit up some shows recently and see an outstanding guitarist, let me know. But in the meantime, I still need to write a forth part for that song. It just isn’t complete without a lead guitar. I’ve been finding that with a lot lately.” She sighed, not sure when she’d find the time to go back to this. “So, Yoosung, I’ve heard that your grades are abysmal. You know we can’t have that, right?”

Yoosung stood from behind the drumkit, shrugging his shoulders and stretching out his hands. “I don’t know why it even matters to you. School and this are separate-“

“Not when you post complaints about failing and your professors on your socials all the time, and your fans start bombarding AM and my social media with hate that you’re overworked. You know your fans think I’m responsible for you failing your classes, right?” Viv glared at him. “Are you trying to ruin my reputation?”

“No way, Viv, I didn’t think people would blame you.”

“Who do you think they would blame? You know their precious bean can never be responsible for himself, right?”

Yoosung’s mouth opened, probably to defend himself, then sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to happen. I… just haven’t been motivated lately.”

“I understand.” Viv offered him a sympathetic smile, trying to smooth out the nervous energy she knew she’d drudged up by calling him out. She’d rather not done it in front of the other guys, but, it’s not like they had time, and hopefully they’d start bothering him about it at times, too. “I know you’ve got class after this, so, let’s find a time to talk. Just me and you.”

“Yeah, ok, I’ll do that.”

“Hey, don’t look like that. I’m not your mom, ok, I’m not going to do anything or punish you. We’re just going to talk, see if we can straighten some things out.”

“Alright, thanks Viv.”

She nodded with a glance up at the clock. Viv had the afternoon open for practices and recording some demos, and she’d scheduled out some time to actually work on music for once, instead of taking care of some administration thing. The guys started packing up. “Hey, Zen, you got some time?”

“Sure, babe.”

Yoosung gave her a small hug on the way out, and with an apology she kissed him on the forehead. She knew he was having a hard time, and it got worse the longer Rika was gone. She wished she’d at least kept in contact with her cousin, tell him she’s at least safe, but she knows that Yoosung stressed her out with how much he depended on her. Seven fist-bumped her on the way past her, a ‘see you later’. He was in production that day, and she’d join him to work on a few tracks later on.

Wandering over towards the keyboard, Viv wondered absently whether or not she should have Zen work through the lead guitar or the keyboard part and whether or not she was going to move him to the keyboard more permanently, which was the original instrument he played back in the RFA. Yoosung’s part just killed it, but was left sort of hanging without the fourth section.

Either way, Zen would be moving back and forth between instruments, between songs, and the more that could be eliminated, the easier moving through a set would be. It would simply be better in the long run to have Zen on something that he was the most familiar with in the end.

“Alright, we can always work around this whole thing, so hop on keyboard and I’m going to grab the guitar.”

They took the time to jam out for a while, working through the song while it was fresh and the inspiration was present, then she had Zen sing through the entire song with both of them playing, then she tweaked the way he sang each verse. The last time they went over it, they made a rough recording on her phone, listened to it, finding both of them were satisfied – she sent both Yoosung and Seven the song for their approval and notes for more changes.

With that finished, Viv checked her messages, finding Jumin had asked her about dinner that night. “I’ve got demos to record this afternoon,” she laughed, standing up from where she was sitting with the guitar to put it away. Zen started to clean up with her.

“You know, you should join CD. You wouldn’t have to sing, you’d just be our guitarist. We would really soar if you-“

This was something Zen brought up all the time, when they were alone. Neither of them wanted Yoosung to feel like she was replacing Rika, even though Carpe Diem and RFA were two separate entities and had different sounds, he might feel bad about having a girl in the group and it not being his cousin.

“I don’t have time for that, you know that Zen, especially now with all the extra responsibilities that keep getting piled on me with Dad constantly needing to call out from work, and this whole thing with Jumin – it’s a struggle just to keep up with you guys when you’re in your off season.”

He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Yeah, so how’s that’s going, anyway? I’d imagine you’re miserable being engaged to Jumin Han of all people.”

Viv rose her eyebrows at him. That was an odd way of asking her about it, though it was right on brand for him. “Everything’s fine, Zen.”

“That’s got to be impossible. You don’t have to lie to make him seem like an actual person, you know? We all know he’s a jerk.”

“Yeah, so are you. I’m a bitch. Yoosung is a brat, Seven is a troll. Any person can be shitty sometimes, Zen, I’m not sure what the problem is,” she laughed.

“I don’t know, Viv, you’re my friend or something and I’m concerned about you.” He snapped. “I hate that your parents can just do what they want with you and don’t give a damn about your happiness. Someone should, at least.”

She couldn't help but feel grateful for the concern. This wasn't about Jumin at all, she should have realized it from the moment he'd said something. "Thanks, Zen."

"What?" He practically glared at her, eyebrows low over his eyes, as if he was trying to do mind-reading techniques on her brain or something. He was the one who always worried just a bit too much about everyone else, he just didn't know how to show it. He and Jumin weren't that different in that respect.

“Thanks for caring about me. Everyone else has been like, 'lucky you', and 'how long is his dick'.”

Zen pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked away. With how pale he is, when he blushed it was vibrant over his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose.

“When you find a partner, just know my vetting process is much rougher.”

“I know. Just don’t scare them away,” he looked up with a lop-sided grin. “Maybe it’s stupid to be so worried about you, and maybe it’s because it’s all arranged and stuff and the two of you never got to decide on your own if you wanted to get married – I bet I’d feel differently about it if that was the case, but I’ve seen how Chairman Han operates for ten years and I’ve never seen him do something in Jumin’s best interest. I don’t want you to get caught up in that.”

“You’re right,” she laughed. “We're worried, too.”

“Dang, I didn’t think my intuition was that honed in.”

“Your intuition always is spot on, Zen. When it comes to relationships, Jumin trusts his dad as far as he can throw him. And we’re not officially engaged until we have the ‘ceremony’ or whatever, so he could call it off and we’d have to figure out what to do next.”

“He wouldn’t! That would be so fucked up!” She looked over at him and nodded. “How could he do that to his own kid?”

“I don’t know, Zen, my father has done it to me, too, for the hell of it. There was the one guy who I actually _liked_ , the rapper, you remember him right? Right when I got back from college. I was so upset about that but Dad gave no fucks and Jay is in a group so he has to like, stay squeaky clean.”

“Oh, that’s right. That dude was hella smart, and an amazing lyrist. You two clicked so well; I’d always wondered what happened with that. One day you two were talking every day and the next it was like he didn’t exist. I always thought it was cause you two had a fight or something.” Viv’s head shook. “That’s shit, Viv.”

“If you could support us, that would be great.” She smiled at him, gently. “You’re like, one of our best friends. It would really hurt if you truly disapproved.”

“Well, if you’re really, actually happy, then I’m all for it,” he set a hand on top of her head. Why was she so short? “And, you know, he’s been a good friend to me, too, I’m the one who is often the asshole, so… maybe I’ll be less of a jerk to him. For you, you know? We’re going to be around each other a lot more.”

“It’ll be more like old times,” she laughed. “I hope I can get him to play again. He was sort of amazing.”

“I was so jealous! He was always on your level when it came to writing music. No one ever knew what you two were talking about.”

“That’s only because the dads enrolled us in music classes together and we’d been playing cello-violin duets since I was eight. They had fun showing us off at company parties, especially having a “virtuoso” violinist as a daughter.”

“Wouldn’t it be amazing if both you and Jumin joined Carpe Diem? Seven could finally take lead guitar and I could return to the keyboard, and Jumin could take bass, and we would be a force to be reckoned with.”

“God, I wish, Zen. In a perfect world…”

Viv checked the clock, took a deep breath, and said what needed to be said.

“You’re not leaving until I see you crush that pack of cigs I know you have.”

“What? I –“

“I can get security to help frisk you.”

“That’s not even legal.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah, but writing it into your contract is.”

“ _Viv, come on!_ ”

 

 

***

 

 

“Excuse me?”

“This is simply a more advantageous arrangement,” Han smiled at his son, a hand over the hand of his new girlfriend. “Before that dinner, I thought more people would be excited about your relationship with Sujin, but there seems to be a lot to be desired by the majority of our investors and –“

“I need you to be more clear about what you’re talking about, Father.”

“I am afraid that I overestimated what is valuable in attempting to find a wife for you, Jumin. I thought finding someone who could match you in interests, intelligence, and with her own lucrative career would not only serve you well but look good to our investors, also.”

“But you feel that you were wrong,” Jumin deadpanned, each word out of his father’s mouth more and more ridiculous.

“Well, that’s the thing, Jumin,” Han started, speaking in a voice that was supposed to sound gentle and apologetic. Jumin found it insulting. “It seems the board and executives don’t really care whether or not she’s good at what she does or whether or not she’s an asset to the company. At the end of the day, she’s simply not beautiful enough for a man like you to be with.”

Jumin was at a loss for words. She needed to be more beautiful? A thousand questions popped into his head at once, all of them questions that didn’t need to be answered, a thousand reasons that she was everything he wanted, needed, and more, the vast majority of them not having to do with her appearance at all.

“I’m sorry, Jumin. But Glam here has found a woman that fits the bill perfectly,” Han grinned.

Jumin almost growled, but settled for narrowing his eyes hatefully instead. “If you had attended the dinner in question, you would know that the investors that are the most influential for the particular issue very much enjoyed her company, especially Pao Kim, Min Lee, and Jung-sik Nam. They are the ones leading the assault on your affairs and reputation. Not only did Sujin handle the dinner beautifully, but she impressed them.”

“It is not that she did not do a good job, Jumin, it is more that we must have higher standards.”

“According to whom, if you’d please, as in you were _not even there_.”

“Ah, Gyun –“

“Gyun!“ he repeated, voice raising, but he settled down immediately. “My standards are quite high, which is the precise reason I will not break off my engagement. She is absolutely perfect for the reason you’d employed her for my wife in the first place. I am not sure why you listen to a word that man says. He’s propositioned Sujin several times at work, and he is saying this to you out of spite of her rejection.”

“You don’t know that he’s—”

“—I was there, Father, which, again, you were not. I heard what he said to my fiancée. I am not hard of hearing. Sujin has no reason to fabricate stories, for one, and second, everyone knows that Gyun solicits other men’s wives all the time, specifically the wives of those who are competition, and defames them in light of their denial.” Jumin was seething, and wondered absently whether his father had ever been so willfully ignorant before. “It has been a problem, father.”

“An issue that we have no proof is actually happening—”

“—pardon me, Father, but this ruse is tiring. I will not sit here and listen to you defend a man for his continuous sexual harassment.”

“I’m not sure what the problem is,” Han’s brow folded together, deep wrinkles along his forehead. “You didn’t want to marry Sujin anyway.”

Jumin pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Sarah is just as wonderful, I’m can assure you,” the woman that his father had introduced as Glam Choi said, which is not a proper name in the least, with that overly saccharine tone as if she was speaking to a baby. Jumin decided not to acknowledge her. She shouldn’t be present for this conversation anyway.

“Yes, Sarah is also quite a bit more beautiful than Sujin. I think you’ll enjoy her a lot-”

“Enjoy her, Father? Pray tell, in what manner should I enjoy her?” He leveled a steely expression at his father, who sputtered and flushed.

“Well, you know what I mean, son.”

“I am sure I do not,” he snapped. “I believe a woman has more value than sex, Father.”

“Of course they do! It’s only that having a woman that’s nice to look at is important, too. And, to make sure that your children are handsome.”

It occurred to him that his father was just as shallow as the women he continued to date. He only cared about their looks, and they only cared about his money.

Perhaps for the first time, Jumin didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for his father’s situation in his love life. He moved on when he got bored of a woman’s face, and that was that. He’d spent his formative years blaming the women’s personalities and qualities for his father’s failed relationships, because of how dearly he appreciated his father, but in reality he was just as, if not more than culpable in these escapades.

“I believe Sujin is magnificently beautiful– I’ve always thought so.” Jumin stated, playing his father’s game, if that’s what needed to be done. “As my opinion is the most important, it seems there is no reason for us to be separated.”

“You might change your mind once you meet Sarah, though, she’s practically a model. And she would be willing to sell her business for a million dollars less than she’s selling it for. It’s a great deal. The two of you could take the business and build it together.” Han looked at his girlfriend and grinned, nodded. “It’s a better deal than the marriage with Sujin and –“

“This is for business? When you presented the idea of marrying Sujin to me, it was because of my own happiness. You told me you knew she could do that because of how great friends we are. But now you’d sell my happiness for a million dollars.”

“That’s not it at all, I’m confident you will be happy with Sarah!”

“Except I am happy with Sujin, very happy, and very much in love with her. You would destroy what I have with her to service your little –“

“What?”

At first, Jumin didn’t know why his father would interrupt him so rudely, and then he’d realized what he’d said. Well, Jumin hadn’t expected to say it, but in his anger it sort of just came out. But that’s what it was, wasn’t it? He’d never _wanted_ to marry someone before. Well, someone that wasn’t her, and he’d wanted to marry her since he was old enough to think marriage through.

“Jumin? You… you’re in love with her?”

“Yes, I am,” he answered, quietly, looking at his hands with a small frown before lifting his eyes to his father, continuing with more confidence, resolute. “Father, I love her. With all my heart. I won’t let her go.”

He watched his father’s mouth open, stunned, but said nothing, and then turned to Glam Choi. “I’m sorry, beautiful, he —”

“—my love, a father knows best. Besides, he has not met Sarah yet, it’s impossible to decide before then. Let’s not be too hasty—”

Jumin directed a glare at the woman. “You, Ms. Choi, have no place in this discussion.”

“Jumin! How dare you speak to Glam that way—”

“—I will not let a stranger weigh in on my marriage.”

“She may be your mother soon, Jumin, you can’t –“

“—I have a mother, thank you, and I am a grown man who does not need a _third_. If I want a mother’s opinion on this matter, I would ask _my_ mother.”

He could not keep his cool. Anger came up his throat. He felt like he was going to vomit his dinner, irrational and fierce. A clawing need of his fiancée ripped open his gut, a visceral feeling that had him reeling in his seat. He needed to hold her and kiss her, speak to her about this abominable event, about his father who did not care an ounce of how he felt, and what seemed like a situation to do whatever necessary to make his new girlfriend happy at the expense of his well-being.

“Jumin, just give Sarah a chance, go out once, just to meet her—”

Jumin dabbed his mouth with his napkin, and dropped it on the table, rose a hand to stop his father’s inane chatter. Then he stood, and bowed. “Excuse my rudeness, I shall depart.”

And with that, his father’s voice behind him, and his phone in his hand, he left the restaurant.


	5. Over the Rainbow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love can give one power, can melt your heart, can tear you open and build you up again. A bond tested is a bond strengthened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't write a song for this chapter. The theme song is "Over the Rainbow". [Check out pentatonix's version, it's beautiful.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGw-YdSGOso)

“I got in trouble again.”

Jumin wasn’t paying attention to the tv anyway, wouldn’t have let a comment like that go unnoticed even if he had been. “What do you mean you got in trouble _again_?”

“What?” Jihyun finally tuned in, concentrating on the tv a bit too hard, mesmerized by the images that flowed from one frame to the other across the screen. “What happened?”

Sujin didn’t really want to talk about it but blurted out anyway, something that had happened more than a couple of times and she wasn’t sure why it was. It wasn’t that she was upset for getting in trouble. It was more that she didn’t know _why_ she was getting in trouble and no one was explaining it to her. They just said things like ‘you’re not supposed to’ and left it at that but they’d never tell her what action she wasn’t supposed to do. But Juju and Jiji were older and smarter and they would be able to help, or at least, that was the hope that sprung the confession from her lips in the first place.

She tapped the tips of her fingers together, attempting to figure out exactly what she’d done. “There’s this boy in my class that keeps hitting me.”

“Hitting you?” Juju asked, voice deadpan.

“Who?” Jiji asked, voice inflecting high.

“Sometimes he hits me, but sometimes he tries to hold my hand, and sometimes he puts his hands on my face and squeezes my cheeks, and sometimes he pulls my ponytail real hard, and he cuts me in line in the lunch room and he takes my strawberry pudding every day and gives me his chocolate one and I don’t _like_ the chocolate one but he won’t give me mine back when I ask him for it back, and he’s just always _hitting me_.”

It spilled out in a hurry. She hadn’t realized how upset the whole thing made her until she pressed the heels of her hands to her face to stop the stream of angry tears that seemed determined to come out even though she really didn’t want to cry.

“He got my shoulder real good yesterday, too, I got a bruise today to show! It made violin practice really hard last night, and Mommy hit my hands with the paddle because she thought I was goofing off and when I told her she didn’t believe me!“ She held up her hands, both of them with purple bruises staining her knuckles.

“Su, slow down,” Jiji gently rubbed a hand down her back. Su realized she hadn’t taken a breath, lights starting to flicker in her eyes, and pain blooming in her forehead.

“The teacher keeps saying, ‘boys will be boys.’ But you two don’t do anything like that, and when I told her, she asked me who you two were and I told her and she kind of, laughed? I think she laughed at me.”

“That’s odd, we’re always together,” Juju mused quietly.

She sighed, nodded. “Well, today, we were working in groups with blocks for math, and I needed help getting the blocks from the closet, and he closed the door on me and it locked.”

“Oh no,” Jiji gasped.

“ _The thing_ happened, and the teacher got angry, and I got in trouble. She said I was too old to be afraid of the dark and I have to stop being overdramatic and boys will be boys and _what does that even mean?_ ”

“Is that why we couldn’t find you at recess?” Juju asked after a few moments.

“I had to sit inside for punishment.”

She put her face in her hands, darkness at the edges of her vision. The whole thing made her so upset that she could barely breathe. Su wanted to fix it, she wanted it to stop, but it seemed like no one was listening to her. She didn’t want boys to like her if it meant they would hurt her, she couldn’t understand why hurting her was ok, and honestly she didn’t want to go to school knowing when she got home her mom would be angry with her, too.

Mommy being angry was the worst of all.

“Su, come on, Suji, you have to breathe,” Jiji pried her hands from her face, Juju pushed her shoulders back, made her look up at blurry faces. It must be happening again if they looked blurry, so she took a deep, slow inhale like Juju had taught her.

“One-and-two-and-“ Juju counted aloud as she sucked in, like the beats of a measure. Sujin forced herself not to blow out all at once, waiting for the counts of the second half note. “-three-and-four-and-“

Two pairs of hands took hold of her much smaller ones. Juju held it in his lap while Jiji rocked the other back and forth, starting to sing softly. “Somewhere over the rainbow—“

Su’s face reddened, her head shook. Then Juju stopped counting and joined the song, too.

“—there’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.”

She knew she was supposed to sing the song, but she didn’t really want to. She didn’t like singing, not like they did. They were always playing around and competing to see who could sing the highest note and singing songs in the car on the way to school and every time she joined in her dad would hear somehow and start going on and on about how she was going to be a big idol and made her take singing lessons on the weekends on top of violin lessons with her mom and she was just so tired and jealous she didn’t get to sing just because it was fun like the boys did.

But the sense of calm that came over her when their voices floated over one another’s in a familiar set of harmonies brought that indignant shield down until she reluctantly added her little voice to theirs.

“Some day I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me. Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops; that’s where you’ll find me.”

The way Jiji smiled, the warmth of Juju’s eyes when she finally did sing made her associated frustration be enveloped by the sheer joy of making any sort of music with her friends, loosened the tendrils of darkness latching onto the muscles of her heart, around her lungs.

“If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow… why, oh, why can’t I?”

She began to laugh, two pairs of arms wrapped around her, and in turn she tried to hug their arms to her the best she could.

“There she is, our good little sister,” Jiji gently praised, smoothing a hand on her head. “We can talk about this without _it_ happening again, ok? We’ll make you sing it again if you can’t stay calm,” he teased.

She sighed. Together, they laughed at her exasperation.

“I just want to know how to stop getting in trouble and it would be nice if he would stop hitting me.”

Jumin and Jihyun looked at each other, two years and some months older, one with newly divorced parents, the other with a ‘useless’ mother, and both too smart for their own good. They had a mutual moment of wondering whether or not telling her the truth was better than trying to protect the heart that would break if they told her the absolute truth.

Juju heaved a breath in and out, squeezed her once tightly before letting go. Then, pulling back to look her in the eye, he gathered her hands to hold them while Jiji’s arms stayed wrapped around her.

“It’s just really hard to explain. Um… you know how when you perform, you put on a special outfit? You don’t want to, but you have to look a certain way so your mom and dad make you wear it anyway.”

She didn’t know where this was going, but she understood the kinds of costumes he was talking about, so she nodded, not wanting to interrupt. He often explained things this way, and even if it was a bit of a circle, it made sense at the end.

“Sometimes we have to pretend to be someone else, like a costume. You have to pretend to be someone that you’re not because that’s how people say you’re supposed to act. Like at the C&R parties. You have to stay quiet and never complain, you’re not allowed to ask questions and you’re really not allowed to ‘talk back’ to people who are mean. You have to pretend to be shy and look at the floor when boys talk to you. You have to let people hug you and kiss you even though you really hate it. And you have to pretend to be happy when old men say bad things or do bad things. You know, because you’re a girl.”

She nodded, she knew exactly what he was talking about. It always made her feel horrible and she never wanted to go to those things because of it. It was stressful and frustrating. Sort of like this situation, where she kept being told she couldn’t say ‘no’ to the boy in her class hitting her.

“Some people think in order to be a real girl or a real boy you have to follow a set of rules like the ones your mom and dad taught you.”  

“I thought you’re a boy if you have a penis and you’re a girl if you have a vagina.”

Juju’s mouth dropped open for a moment, his gaze flickering over her shoulder, and she felt Jiji’s head shake behind her. It seemed like he didn’t really know what to say next. Then Juju sat up very straight, kept firm hold of her hands, and answered her sternly.

“No. You’re a boy if you feel on the inside you’re a boy. Or a girl. Or neither, or both. That part doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, ok.” She had to think about what he’d said again, then. “There are rules… yeah I guess that’s what those are. I tried to get my parents to let me wear a suit to Mr. Lee’s birthday party last week. I’m tired of wearing fairy dresses, and I liked your navy suit, and I wanted to match! But they said I couldn’t because I’m a girl and girls don’t wear suits.”

“Yes, just like that.”

“Ok, but _why_?”

“I still haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“Me neither.”

Her head shook. That lead to an entirely different question, one that she realized he was leading her to ask. “I know what the girl rules are, but what about the boy rules?”

“Boys are supposed to be mean,” Jiji told her in his gentle voice, and Juju nodded. “Boys don’t cry, boys don’t smile too much, boys don’t say ‘sorry’, boys don’t talk about their problems… boys aren’t supposed to have feelings, or I guess, shouldn’t talk about them or let them show on your face. Boys are supposed to be aggressive and they’re not allowed to care about other people’s feelings. Especially girl’s feelings.”

 _“_ What’s ah-gress-sive mean?”

“It means if you say no, or stop, or say you don’t like something, they keep doing it anyway. Or they become really mean, and call you names or hurt your feelings.”

“So, um,” she paused, trying to piece all this information together, but it was complicated. Both of them stayed silent, Juju stroked his thumbs over the back of her hands absently, and the slight distraction helped to keep her grounded. “How come he keeps hitting me, though? I thought hitting is bad for everyone?”

“Maybe his mom and dad never told him he shouldn’t hit people, or he just likes doing it.” Jiji shrugged.

“Ok-kay.” She sighed. “So that’s why my teacher gets upset when I ask her to make him stop. She knows he’s not going to listen to her cause she’s a girl, and he’s not going to listen to me because I’m a girl, and it’s his mom and dad who told him to be like that so if she tells them they’re probably not going to tell him to stop, and I can’t hit him back because I’m a girl and girls aren’t supposed to hit people and I’d actually get in trouble.”

“That sounds about right.”

“So what do I do?” she asked, softly, worried. “I guess I can live with him being mean, but I don’t like him hitting me.”

“Nothing,” Juju told her. “We’ll fix it.”

“Don’t worry, Suji, you didn’t do anything wrong. We’re going to make sure you’re ok.”

“You promise?”

“Pinky promise,” they answered, two hands shoving extended pinkies into her line of sight. She tried, and failed, to wrap her own pinky over both of theirs at the same time, but it was good enough, they considered it done.

And with that, it was over. With a small smile, Juju lifted and opened his arms. “Now, then, come here.”

He helped her to his lap, pulled her in to envelop him, pressed as close as they could. He made some sort of motion she felt against her back, and a few seconds later another pair of arms wrapped around her waist, weight pressed on her back. Juju adjusted her so that Jiji could move even closer, face laying against her shoulder blades while Juju tucked her head under his chin.

It was comforting there, and with their warmth the stress and the memories of a bad school day started to melt away.

“I’m not supposed to tell you guys ‘I love you’ anymore,” Juju said quietly. “I was told I was too old, now.”

“Do you think nine is too old to have best friends?” Jiji asked, absently. “I thought we were going to love each other forever.”

“Maybe you can do it anyway.” Sujin’s little hands clasped hard into the fabric of Juju’s shirt. “Juju, you said it’s like when I perform. But I only have to do that when people are watching, right? We can be nice and we don’t have to follow those bad rules and we can say ‘I love you’ cause we do! We just need to make sure to do it when the adults aren’t around. They’re not around all that much.”

“That’s right, Su. We don’t have to follow all those stupid rules when we’re together.”

“That seems like a good solution if there is any.”

“I love you, Jiji, I love you, Juju,” she professed with every cell of her body.

“I love you, too,” She felt when Jiji’s arms removed themselves to fold around Juju’s shoulders, too, smushing her further between them. “I love you both so much.”

“Yes,” Juju agreed, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “I love you both.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Hey, I’m Vivere” Viv smiled, carefully friendly. She could have sworn she had seen this woman before, and she had no idea who she was so she wasn’t sure why she was here of all places. Likely the daughter of one of the businessmen, she guessed, and so she stepped to the magenta-haired woman and took her hand, pulled to tuck it into her own elbow. “How are you? Having a good time? Is there anything I can get for you?”

“Uh, what?”

“I know how it is, but you don’t have to be so stiff,” Viv tried to reassure her. “I’ll introduce you.”

“You have no idea who I am,” the other woman squeaked.

Viv shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be polite. You’re at my party, after all, it’s my job to make sure you’re taken care of. Honestly, you look miserable.”

She shrugged. “I really don’t want to be here, and you don’t want me here.”

“Is there a reason for that?”

“I’m here to steal your fiancée.”

Viv laughed. It wasn’t in disbelief, she was absolutely sure the woman was being serious from the way she leveled one of those irritated looks at her. There was a challenge in those eyes, and Viv couldn’t help but appreciate it. Just then a waiter walked by, and Viv grabbed two flutes of champagne from him to hand one to the other woman. She stared at the glass as if it was poisoned, lifting a narrowed gaze back up to Viv.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Sarah.”

She could tell she was annoying the shit out of her just by being near her, which in itself amused Viv. “Who are you here with?”

“What is this, 20-questions?” Sarah snapped. That was the question that got her angry?

“Yikes,” Viv laughed, disarming the other woman with the blatantly pointing out of her rudeness. “Are you always this difficult at parties? Lighten up.”

“What? Of course not. You have no right to ask me so many questions.”

“Considering you’re crashing my party, I’m pretty sure I have the right to ask why you’re here. You could be paparazzi and I might need to have you thrown out. Actually, I could just kick you out because I want to.”

“You’re antagonizing me,” Sarah accused, and Viv again couldn’t help but admire her directness.

“Yeah, a bit,” she laughed again. “Sorry, I have this habit of messing with people who are easy to make upset. It’s kind of shit of me.”

Not returning hate for hate seemed to throw Sarah off guard, and she relaxed a bit now that Viv wasn’t trying poke at her being upset. She had to stop doing that to people she didn’t know. The boys were used to it, but it set people like Sarah on edge. Stress was practically visible on her skin.

“Have you met Jumin before? He’s kind of a jerk.”

“What?”

Viv swayed on her feet, looked up at the ceiling for a moment, feeling the bit of a buzz fizzle through her senses. “But he’s a good friend under all that hard shell.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

She wondered for a moment why she was telling her all this, but it sort of became obvious the moment she thought about it. “You look like you could use a friend, and I doubt it you’d be interested in being friendly with me, that’s all. Everyone can use another person on their side, you know?”

“Is that an insult?”

“It’s sort of sad that you think it might be, but I get it. Ah, there he is. Just, uh, don’t try to _climb the tree_ when you talk to him. He’ll get upset and try to leave, or he’ll act like an ass.“ Viv started to leave, but paused and looked back at Sarah one last time. “And feel free to let one of us or the staff know if you need anything. We’ll be around.”

 

 

 

 

“Let me get a good look at the two of you,” said his mother.

She took Viv from him, hands on her shoulders, turning her around to look at her outfit. For some reason that didn’t seem like the only thing that his mother was assessing, and he couldn’t guess as to why she felt like she had the right to have a say in anything at all when she was so rarely around.

“You’ve grown into such a beautiful young lady,” his mother finally concluded, her sharp demeanor relaxing slightly. “It seems like yesterday when I was giving you singing lessons. Daesuk must be proud of you.”

“Thank you,” Viv blushed, smiled, and gave a small bow of thanks. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Likewise, my dear. It seems things have been hectic for the two of you. I apologize for not notifying you of my attendance in advance.”

“I’m just glad you were able to make it!” Viv bounced on the balls of her feet. “We would have made accommodations for you regardless. I’ve heard you’ve been travelling, how _has_ that been?”

His mother’s mouth became slightly more pleasant, and it was remarkable to him as to how easily Viv could bring down people’s walls. He got a lot of his demeanor and his appearance from his mother, so he knew it was difficult to speak to her. She was intimidatingly tall, sharp-faced, and flinty-eyed with the intelligence to match. Even he had nothing to say for the moment, and thankfully, she seemed more interested in Vivere. If that got him off the hook of idle small talk, he’d let her take the lead.

Or perhaps it was simply that Viv was used to dealing with severe people, and the personality wasn’t off putting to her. It did make him wonder.

“I have had a wonderful time, thank you. Dubai is a must-go destination when you have the chance.” She glanced the room as if she was uncomfortable, and he couldn’t blame her, he was just as on edge. “If we had more time I would tell you about it, but, alas –“

“Oh! Let’s exchange emails! That way we can keep in contact no matter which country you go to next. Actually, we haven’t discussed our honeymoon at all, perhaps you could offer some suggestions?” Jumin watched as Viv stepped forward and took his mother’s hand, watched the stoic woman’s gray eyes widen just slightly, and Viv tucked her hand into her elbow, leading her off for him to follow.

“We can get a cup of coffee, discuss where you’d like to go, I suppose.”

There was a heavy pause in the conversation, and Jumin knew Viv was about to say something he didn’t want her to.

“He would never tell you, but Jumin does miss you. Let’s keep in better contact this time, ok?”

Something about that triggered a wave of memories to overcome him, made him stop in his tracks. The things people said about his mother and father when they divorced, only seeing her for piano lessons or on tv when she performed, hearing how she was doing from Viv when she’d come home from voice lessons, Jihyun only getting to see his mother at church, her speech and hearing deteriorating, his father’s unnecessary commentary and wounded childhood hearts.

“I have not done my due diligence to keep in contact, have I? Jumin is an adult, and as such, I focus my time on my younger children,” she sighed, then shook her head. “Forgive me.”

He knew she wasn’t saying a lot for the sake of proper conversation, things about his father and his girlfriends, things about courts, restrictions, and regulations. It sounded more sincere than he thought it would, her head bowed just slightly in apology. Perhaps the two years away was good for her. She sounded better, happier, more open, she would have never apologized before let alone mean it.

And so, in return, he nodded. “I also did not make the effort. We could say the fault lies with both of us.”

The stern woman in her three piece suit and wide-brimmed hat stopped, turned to scan him again. Her eyes bored into him, and he stood up slightly straighter under her scrutiny. Suddenly the harshness and tension disappeared even though she didn’t move, didn’t smile. It was in the way it seemed her muscles relaxed, jawline and neck not as tight, lips not as pulled.

“It looks as if you are happy, Jumin,” his mother noted. “I’m glad of that.”

Viv turned and looked at him with a smile, eyes sparkling. “Me, too.”

Their eyes connected and held, unable to hold back his own happiness as it bubbled in his stomach, up his throat. It required a deep breath to steady himself from a feeling that is still not a norm for him, one that brings up anxiety with it, the knowing fear of what’s gone wrong, what could further go wrong. And then he remembered his mother on his fiancée’s arm, and he lifted his gaze to hers, finding his mother was smiling, too. One of those tender smiles he never saw from anyone other than Viv.

With the clearing of his throat, he stepped around the two women to walk before them, the dip of his head dropping his hair into his face and hiding its burning color.

 

 

 

 

Jumin had picked Viv up and sat her at the edge of the bar, which was too high up for her to just modestly get down from. She watched him order her an old fashioned without the cherry from the bartender, then lean himself between her knees, hands on the bar beside her. She was sure he would hate PDA, she’d said so to him, and he’d said he was uncomfortable with physical contact. Except here they were a month later in this rather intimate position in front of the guests of their engagement party.

He’d made the excuse that if people didn’t see them snogging at their own betrothal party, his father would really have a field day with breaking them up.

Viv didn’t believe him at all.

The bartender didn’t say anything other than slide the pair of drinks across the bar, likely too afraid to tell Jumin to get his fiancée’s ass off the marble. She wouldn’t normally take advantage of people who were too worried about getting fired to tell Jumin not to do something he shouldn’t be doing, but tonight would be the exception. They needed to put together a united front. Despite the fact that Jumin hated liquor, he tapped the glass of his gin and tonic to her old fashioned with a faint smile.

He turned his left hand to look at the space beneath the pinky, and the thin lines of a tiny feather that were drawn down the side of his hand.  

“Is it still sore?” she asked him, taking his hand to look at the small tattoo, then taking the wrist of his shirt and rolling it up so that it the cuff would stop rubbing against it.

“Just a bit itchy,” he hummed his thanks. “It is starting to shed.”

“Seems like you heal a little faster than I do,” she laughed, digging through her purse to take out an ointment and spread it over the inked skin.

“You are rather delicate,” he smiled one of those smiles that knew too much, and she knew he wasn’t talking about her skin at all, then put down his glass to return the favor. “I appreciate you decided to wear shorter sleeves to show this off. I know you prefer to keep your tattoos hidden.”

Viv shrugged. “I’m surprised you got yours on your _hand_ , instead of further up your arm like I recommended. You can’t cover this even if you wanted to.”

“I don’t care if anyone sees it,” he stated confidently, relaxed, half-lidded eyes looked over the tiny wing from her wrist down the outside of her right arm. It was a far cry from how he felt at first. When they held hands it looked as if a feather from the wing dropped onto his hand. “Saeran had a good design, I did not want to change the integrity of it.”

It was a soft kiss, the stroke of fingertips against her jawline to redirect the attention of her lips from her glass to his, an easy smile shared privately between them, one of those ‘secret’ smiles that got locked away when anyone else was around.

Then someone cleared their throat and when she pulled back Jumin chased her, her father’s laugh startled her. Jumin’s soft chuckle joined it. When she opened her eyes and turned to look at her dad, he took that as a cue to saddle up next to them, leaning on the bar.

“Daddy, hey,” Jumin lifted her off of the bar and moved out the way to let her father hug her. “How are you? You promise you’re not drinking tonight, right?”

“Yes, I promise,” he laughed, kissed her on the forehead. “Can’t drink with the meds and such, I know. I’m being a good little daddy, learned my lesson that one time. Besides, I’d like to stay for the whole event. Save me a dance for later, birdie?”

“Of course.”

“I’m happy that you two are so compatible,” he said so sincerely, with one of those wide smiles that still sent her stomach fluttering. “I contacted your mother, I thought I would let you know.”

“You what? Why’d you do that?”

“I thought I should apologize. Fifteen years late, I guess, but there should be peace between us, I think. For the sake of grandchildren and…” he paused, looking embarrassed, a hand reaching to the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s for my own peace of mind. I was a horrible person when I was all drugged out.”

“You were, but, I’m proud of you.”

 

 

 

 

“Jumin! You haven’t met Sarah. She’s Glam’s student I was telling you about.”

Not bothering to fake a smile, Jumin’s gruffly displeased voice said the words, but didn’t mean their artificial politeness. “Nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Sarah replied in a cooing voice, that horrible, fake overly-saccharine sound, stepping forward, scooting to his side. If she did want to ingratiate herself, she’d already put him off by a mile. Jumin took a step back, attempting to put some distance between them.

“What a handsome son you have, dear, he takes so much after you. Seeing him in the light brings out your matching features.” Glam Choi was speaking to his father, who was watching the woman with rapt attention. His father should know that the whole thing was a lie, Jumin was the spitting image of his mother. Maybe he just liked to be flattered, no matter whether the compliment was based in reality.  

“No, no, I’ve gotten soft in my age, but thank you: you’re so sweet, Glam.”

Sarah took another, almost imperceptible step towards him, attempting once again to close the space. With what she was wearing, and at this proximity, he couldn’t look at her face without looking straight down her top. Jumin sighed. Was this ever going to stop happening? Couldn’t he get a break at his _engagement_ party?

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, brushing unnaturally pink hair behind one ear.

“Yes, most people have.”

“Come now, Jumin, be cordial to the young lady,” his father scolded.

“I am being polite,” Jumin grumbled, had to suppress the urge to just walk away. He was so entirely disinterested in whatever it was she’d have to say. He would be more amenable if she wasn’t literally attempting to touch him. “What do you do?”

“I, ah, own a business called Sugar Round.”

“The one you’re attempting to sell to my father cheaper by offering your hand?” He hadn’t meant for it to come out as disgusted, but it did, and he didn’t feel the need to correct it or apologize. “What do you plan to do when you sell and get married?”

“Become a wife and mother, of course,” she answered slyly, voice thick as syrup. “A working woman with children? It’s abhorrent. It’s a woman’s job to take care of her children, don’t you think?”

A judgmental stance to take, he thought, as his own mother continued singing when he was a child, even briefly working for Ars Moriendi and holding singing lessons. Vivere’s mother continued to be an extraordinary violinist, returning to the orchestra when she was old enough for a sitter. He knew that Viv wouldn’t stop writing music for a moment, and he would never want her to. A waste of talent to forget herself as if motherhood becomes all a woman is.

“I prefer to think a father’s role in his child’s life is as important as a mother’s,” he said, simply, arms crossing, attempting to close off his space from the woman.

Sarah followed, ducking around him and kept talking. “Oh, no, you don’t have to say things like that to impress me,” she giggled, pressing the tips of her fingers to her lips. “Everyone knows your job is to provide for the family.”

With a heavy, somewhat frustrated, somewhat tired sigh, he attempted to cut off the conversation. “I do nothing to impress anyone. It seems our opinions differ on the matter. Now, if you are finished insulting all the important women in my life –“ he stopped himself, realizing he was letting his distaste bleed out.

“No, I didn’t mean to insult anyone—“

He hissed when she grabbed his left hand, long nails digging into his palm, arm against her chest, sore tattoo and all. What did she think she was doing?

“Let go of me.”

“Oh! I’m sorry,” she twittered, letting go and stepping back. Jumin let out another deep sigh and turned his hand to look at the marks of where her nails had dug in too hard, turning his hand to look at his tattoo. She’d thankfully only pressed on the sensitive skin with her palm. “Is that a tattoo?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a feather. What for?”

With some point of pride that was pulled up in light of this woman clearly attempting to push into a space not meant for her, “It’s for the love of my life.”

“You’re embarrassing,” a deep voice laughed, startling him. Turning to look over his shoulder, he came face to face with Viv’s boss, Kenji. “Viv would cringe so hard.”

“That is true,” he laughed in relief, not because it was funny. Kenji would poke at him, but he knew the man didn’t think anything of it. In fact, he was sure he’d seen both tattoos already. Quickly, he changed the subject. “Kenji, how goes things in production?”

“Much easier now that Mr. Park has been able to step back in. It would be even better if Viv would accept that promotion we’ve been trying to give her, having her attend board meetings would really help everyone, since she’s already lead songwriter on so many albums that we have to have separate meetings with her to keep the executives up to speed.”

“I’m still trying to convince her to take it. She doesn’t want people to think she only got the promotion because we’re engaged. Besides, she doesn’t want to be relegated to administrative tasks.”

“People are going to think she hasn’t earned the promotion regardless of who signs the paperwork, you, Han, me, or Park – it won’t matter. Jealousy is ugly.”

“Yes, it is.”

“If I was her I wouldn’t have been able to keep such a good wrap on my emotions at her age. To be honest, that’s one of the main reasons I want her as a department head. She’s chill.”

“Yes,” Jumin agreed, again, nodding.

“If I may interrupt,” Lin Park was holding out his hand for Jumin to take, and shook his hand as firmly as he would have with a man in America. When they let go Jumin flexed his hand through the sting behind his back. “Congratulations, Mr. Han. If I may say so myself, my niece is quite the catch.”

“Thank you. We make a good team.”

“She’s not very pretty though, is she?” He heard Glam say. It was sort of distant – she was talking to his father and more or less tucked up to his side, “whispering” in his ear but clearly speaking loud enough for people to hear her. “I guess you don’t have to be if you’re the executive’s daughter.”

“Glam, that’s my friend’s daughter you’re talking about,” his father half-heartedly admonished her.

“But their children aren’t going to be beautiful enough to meet the kind of standard your magnificent family deserves,” she went on, as if she was talking about a piece of meat. Why was it that they were so fixated on how she looked? Perhaps she was appealing to what his father thought was important in a woman to disqualify Vivere. It was quite disgusting.

“Sarah _is_ easier on the eyes,” his father agreed.

Said woman shifted beside him, seemingly uncomfortable.

“It’s really sad that your own mentor talks about you that way,” he heard Viv say, and looked down to find her standing on the other side of Sarah. “I’m sure you have other qualities than nice boobs.”

He saw Sarah start, instantly becoming upset, hissing through her teeth nastily. “You’re a bitch.”

Viv’s laugh startled his father and Glam Choi, made Sarah’s anger appear on her face by making it redden down her chest. When Viv looked up at him, it was with a wicked smile. He felt his ears grow hot. What in the world was she doing? His father and his girlfriend was trying to find reasons to break up their marriage and this woman, Sarah, was attempting to replace her. And Viv was over here being playful, mean in a nice way, or nice in a mean why, and he wasn’t sure which she was being exactly.

Instead of engaging, he nodded her over to him. “My hand requires your attention, angel.”

“What happened?”

When she picked up his hand, she did so with her own tattooed arm. He glanced at Sarah, whose eyes had gone wide when she saw how the pair of tattoos matched. His father also noticed, looked surprised, and then a look of frustration came over his features. For some reason it made him swell with pride even more, watching these people who would never have, who had never had, what he and Vivere shared, watching them disapprove as if they had the right to do so.

It was odd that it made him feel even more like things were just as they should be.

“Damn, it’s kind of red. I brought stuff to wrap it, if you want.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” he smiled, enjoying her fretting over him.

“It seems your tat is ok, it’s your hand that’s messed up. Seriously, though, what happened?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

She frowned at him as if she knew exactly what happened, but lifted his palm to her mouth and lightly kissed it. He wasn’t expecting it, though Jumin thought he would have melted with the action even if he had, a blush spreading across his face. Then she directed her attention to his father.

“So, are you trying to break our arrangement, Mr. Han?” he heard Viv ask, stepping between him and his father.

He wished he hadn’t told her, knowing she’d confront him like this. Of course she would, of course when he’d brought another woman along. Jumin reached forward to grab her waist, to bring her back to him, stop the confrontation before it happened but Jumin realized it was too late. It was on when she came over to greet his father as was proper. He had to be confronted about it, this wasn’t just between the two of them.

His father stammered, attempting to peel Glam off of him and approach Vivere. It didn’t work, Glam just held on tighter. “Of course not, dear, it was merely a suggestion.”

She sighed. “Have you consulted my father about this?”

“I – well, it’s out of our hands, now, so –“

“Is it? I’m pretty sure it isn’t. I’ve experienced botched arrangements at the whim of my father before. Should I go talk to Joel or something?”

Joel Patkin was their family lawyer, who also did a lot of work for Ars Moriendi. His fiancée was circling his father, like a cat stalking prey. He wouldn’t dare say a thing.

“Ah, that wouldn’t be necessary, Sujin,” Chairman Han laughed nervously. “I want to make sure things go well –“

She swayed, almost as if she was dancing, her dress moving with her. Her hands clasped behind her back and her head bowed just slightly as she stepped closer to his father, slipped out of his grasp. He realized she was pulling back the intimidating parts of her, like she was ducking in the grass to hide before pouncing.

“Well for you and Ms. Choi? I sincerely hope things go well if she makes you happy. It’d be about time, right?”

“Sujin, I –“

Her voice dropped, he couldn’t make out what she’d said, but whatever it was made his father’s face visibly become distressed, worried, or maybe sad, eyes snapping to Viv with his mouth hanging open, at an obvious loss for words. She lifted her head, looked the man in the eye and held his gaze for a long, tense, moment, before she turned and wandered back his way, held her hand out for him to take.

Jumin heard his father suck in a breath. What did she say? He stared at her, and then his gaze shifted up to him, watched Jumin as if he was making a choice.

Maybe he was.

“I only want what’s best for Jumin,” Glam Choi started again, bringing him back to the harsh reality of the situation he was put in, but she was talking to his father and not him, trying to reassure him.

Jumin wove his fingers through his fiancée’s and let her lead him away.

 

 

 

 

Viv giggled, thoroughly charmed. Of course he would know ballroom dancing, social dances. Broadway made you versatile in ways that other professions in the dance world didn’t. Even though Zen made the dances look so easy and beautiful that many people stood back to watch, and even though she had some dancing experience from middle school up to college, it was primarily in pop-ish hip hop and lyrical. Viv understood the basics of being a good follow in waltzing, but nerves kept her looking at her feet and trying to anticipate the next step.

“You must not be having enough fun,” Zen laughed, “you keep looking away from me.”

“It’s these shoes,” she lied, well sort of, her heels were much too high and too stiff for her to expect to know how to put her foot down.

“Alright, take them off.”

“I’d tear up my tights.”

“Take them off.”

She glanced around, then leaned to whisper in his ear. “You’d be able to see my tats.”

“I can already see one of them,” he snickered, raising her right hand and twirling her under his arm. “How many are there, anyway?”

“Zen!”

“Do you think I should get one? It would solidify my rocker image. Mr. Park showed me his sleeve and it was slick.”

He often did this. Zen, the total opposite of Jumin, with his endless small talk and rambling, encouraged people to speak to him and divulge all kinds of information. She could learn a thing or two from his ability to relax most people around them. Viv had to try hard to make sure she wasn’t finding sore spots to poke and then tickling them with needles.

“But like, you can’t, because of theatre and stuff,” she pouted. “You’d be gorgeous all tatted up, though, god.”

“I would be, wouldn’t I?” He laughed that free, boisterous sound, pausing as the song ended and lifted her to sit at the edge of the stage.

Viv looked around, people standing around waiting for the next piece to be played. Jumin was hovering at the edge of the room with a glass of wine in his hand, watching the crowd with that lazy expression he often got. The members of the stringed quartet plus piano looked down at Zen as he leaned up to speak to them.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything easier to dance to, would you? I mean, the waltzing is nice but—“

“Zen don’t bother them—“

“Well, you wouldn’t happen to know salsa or bachata, would you?” The bassist laid down his instrument and crouched at the edge of the stage.

“Hell yeah!”

Viv looked up at them. “No way, bachata? That was my favorite in college!”

“We’ve got to change instruments.”

“Remind me to tip like crazy,” she squeaked, kicked her legs so her shoes fell off. “Come help me down.”

Zen was tall enough to easily pick her up by the waist and set her on the floor, and Viv bee-lined through the crowd to Jumin, shoving her shoes in his empty hand and shedding her tights. He looked down at her like she was crazy but said nothing, just lifted his face back up to people watch. Then she shoved her tights in the shoe he was holding.

“What are you doing?”

“Dancing?”

He hummed, nodded, a hand reaching down to scoot up the skirt of her dress an couple inches to reveal the tattoo on her thigh. “I imagine people will see this.”

“That’s fine, isn’t it?”

“Yes? I’m not sure why you hide them, but how you feel is what matters.”

“Maybe I should stop being afraid of how people will think of me. It doesn’t matter if the people I love don’t care.”

Fondly, he smiled at her, dipped down to kiss her lightly. “That’s my Suji.”

Viv blushed, but forced herself not to turn away. “Dance with me soon.”

She felt him nod with the brush of his nose against hers. “Soon.”

Zen called her over the crowd as the stringed quartet turned band started to play again and people turned towards the stage, and subsequently, the dance floor, as the genre or music changed drastically. She ran over to join him, took the hand that was offered to her, was brought to his hip, his hand pressed flat between her shoulder blades.

“Do you remember how this works?”

“For the most part, I think so.”

He laughed. “At least don’t look down.”

Like the show off that was in his blood, he dipped her back with the one hand at her shoulder, and with the momentum of bringing her up, turned her under his arm, grabbing her hand as she spun away just in time to walk her to him and drop a hand to her hip, to bring her in the right direction of the dancing pattern. For the rest of the song, Zen hummed the melody and she grinned while he maneuvered them across the dance floor.

“It’s nice to see you finally smile,” Zen noted. “Difficult time?”

“Yeah, it’s sucked.”

“Then let’s have fun.”

Her father showed up at her shoulder when the song ended, she’d forgotten he even knew latin social dances, but he’d taught her how to salsa as a little girl. He gave Zen a gentle pat on the back when he gave a princely bow, and while the dance wasn’t as pretty and flashy as it was when Zen lead her along, she was even happier nonetheless. Mr. Park didn’t say a word, just let the music carry him, and for the first time in a long time she remembered he was the reason her heart seemed like it was intertwined with the love of sound.

Yoosung wandered up to her at some point, with a face that was so red that it clearly meant he was probably forced up there by Seven, so she took his hands and taught him how to salsa much like her father had for her so many years ago.

Mr. Nam didn’t know salsa or bachata, but he did know how to tango a bit, and in his age he wasn’t able to move like she knew he probably did when he was younger, but they had the chance to chat about music. After seeing her tattoo, he pushed up a sleeve to show her his, faded but crisp, laughing about being a groupie in the ‘70s, following his favorite rock band across the United States and Europe. He told her about brass sections in bands and the majesty of seeing Earth, Wind, and Fire, David Bowie, and Wings in concert. Then he began an old-man-style of complaints about instrumental sampling and popular music not hiring real musicians to play background music on tracks anymore, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

Seven, of course, knew what he was doing. She always wondered where in the world he’d learned, but he was practically an expert, and danced much less like a trained dancer like Zen but more like he’d gone to the Dominican Republic and spent a long time in clubs there. As if he understood the intent behind that type of dance, his movements were smoother, understated, gentle. Even his hands were soft, pushing and pulling with barely the tips of his fingers, closing his hold with only enough pressure at the back of her shoulder to guide her but never to force.  

“You’re just like your father,” Mr. Kim laughed, took her hand, pushed her back and pulled her forward into a salsa when the next song came on. The statement came as a comment on the tattoo on her leg, which brought up the lotus on her back, the one she’d gotten when her father was first diagnosed, the one that matched his. He found it sweet, said if her father approved (and even helped), then he had no place telling the man that he’d steered his daughter in the wrong direction. She wondered out loud where he’d learned to salsa, and he told her how it was a convenient skill from his wedding – they’d gotten married in Europe, and she’d wanted a western style wedding, first dance and all. Subsequently, she told him about the dance communities in New York, how going to a music institution lead her there naturally.

As Mr. Kim walked away, she felt fingers walk down her back. She turned to look at who it was, stepping away despite the fact that a hand stopped her, wrapped around the base of her ribcage right where only one person knew a tattoo lived. Jumin kneeled to place her heels in front of her feet. He didn’t, however, give her back her tights, and she stepped into her shoes, which adjusted her height so it would be easier for them to dance together. A hand at her back drew her closer to him, she wrapped her arms loosely around his neck, and he tucked himself down, into her.

It reminded her of college, when he’d visited her on the weekends and they’d go out to the upper east side to the clubs and dance the night away. He still knew how to move her after all these years, one light hand right under her shoulder blades. The other hung limply at his side, sometimes tapping the side of his leg on the fourth and eighth count. When he closed his hold around her shoulders, taking her right hand with his left, he turned briefly to kiss her wrist, held her hand to his chest, led her by the hip instead.

She lost herself in him, nodded absently when he pulled her along as the song ended, not needing to speak for her to follow.

 

 

 

 

Viv closed her eyes, breathed carefully, deeply. The red of her lipstick stained his fingers, likely his mouth too, though Jumin couldn’t bring himself to care. She was magificent, he mused, taking the moment to simply observe her. The flutter of inky eyelashes clumped together with mascara, haloed in darkness from clenching them closed. Lipstick smeared over lips swollen from his attention on them, pursed around his fingers. Long neck exposed as her head rested against the wall, blotching marks from where he’d bitten her.

He sighed and felt himself smile, tingling with desire. She hummed, sending vibrations through his hand, pulling lewd thoughts of other things her voice could be doing for him from the depths of his mind.

Finding himself responding with a purring rumble, lowering his head to press his lips under her ear, he whispered, “You're so beautiful like this.”

Jumin thanked every deity and then some that her dress was black, knowing he would’ve spread red fingerprints all over it by now if it was any other color. He leaned his weight against her so that didn't need to hold her up, pinning her in place. Trapped as she was, all she could do was whimper, a pretty sound he regretted muffling with his fingers in her mouth, but he didn’t intend on her trying to endure his attention soundlessly.

No, he enjoyed every utterance, savored the thrill of the possibility of a couple hundred people just outside the door hearing her melodic voice as he loved her. He shuddered with the sheer satisfaction of the way she reacted to his touch, the vulnerability she gave him access to without restrictions, the trust she must have in him to allow him these moments. Jumin let himself go, let his awareness sink just a bit, enough to revel in her, to be led to the bank with her before falling in the water.

Her hand on his wrist pulled his hand from her mouth. He rested his forearm on the wall to support himself as he leaned in to kiss her instead. Somewhere in his peripheral, his senses started to emerge from its haze, realizing their environment was compromised.

“Jumin,” it was a gentle little moan, exhaustion, praise, and yearning wrapped in one sound of his name. A sound he adored, a tone he only heard in private, soft and for him. He couldn't help but smile in reply, nuzzling her hot cheeks and neck. He didn’t want to stop, but as his awareness sharpened he hoped the person who had come in would leave. There was the snap and burr of the wheel of a lighter, the acrid scent of a cigarette being lit, something he knew would bring her up, out of the fragile space he’d coaxed her down into.

Mentally, he cursed. 

“Jumin,” she whispered, voice still languid and warm, “there’s someone here.”

“Yes,” he confirmed, unable to prevent his smirk when her eyes opened to pretend to glare at him.

“What should I do with you?” she sighed, exasperation, perhaps, tired, more likely.

“I’d hazard a guess but the timing is a bit precarious.”

“This is all your fault.”

“It is,” he admitted, relieving her of his weight and finally setting her back on her feet when he was sure she could stand. A monogramed handkerchief was pulled from his pocket, and he began to carefully wipe at her mouth, mindful of how sore her lips must be. 

“I’m probably going to need to take it off, honestly,” she laughed, taking the square of silk from his hand and wetting it with her tongue before beginning to wipe the stain of her lipstick from his face. “I need you to get my purse for me from the bartender.”

“Of course, my love.”

When she was happy with how his face looked, she cleaned his fingers, a moment of silence between them in that deserted hallway. It had been a long day, and he hadn’t even ‘proposed’ to her yet. That was supposed to come at the end of the event, obviously, he checked his watch briefly, another half hour. Remarkable just how much a bit of quiet time with someone you love could revitalize an otherwise despondent spirit.

"I'll be right back," he promised.

She grinned. "I know."

Down the hall, with a brief glance back at Viv as he paused at the door. Absently he wondered if she was all right.

“She makes the prettiest sounds,” a voice taunted with amusement, stopping Jumin in his tracks and shaking him from the thoughts that had him lingering a bit too long at the doorknob. What kind of disgusting person would— “now I understand why you’d want to keep her for yourself.”

Jumin didn’t want to grace the man with his presence any longer, but there was a reason he was here. He turned to look at him over his shoulder, but not enough to give him his full attention, catching Gyun put out his cigarette against the wall. “What are you doing here?”

“Your father invited me, having realized you hadn’t,” Gyun chuckled darkly. “Quite rude, Jumin Han, but I understand.”

His question answered, Jumin let himself out. Gyun followed him, continued speaking all on his own.

“An up and coming music producer, in line to become top executive of Ars Moriendi, doesn’t give two shits about what you think, has her own money, her own career, knows how to use those feminine charms to her advantage. A bit edgy, unconventional, incredibly beautiful, cultured, outspoken, strong, assertive. I can see why you’re in love with her.”

Completely uninterested in his opinion of her, Jumin kept walking, asked the bartender for her bag. When he turned around he came face to face with Gyun. He looked as if he was projecting this air of relaxation, but Jumin could see the tenseness in his jaw and the coldness in his eyes despite the open smile.

“The kind of woman who’d be a great business partner, yet a terrible mother.”

Jumin’s brow rose, but he didn’t bother to speak, knowing the man wouldn’t listen. Gyun stepped closer to him, pushing him against the bar. Jumin flexed his hand into the soft leather of her purse, the cold of its gold hardware keeping him present.

“Call this off, make room for a man who can handle a woman of that caliber.”

“Absolutely not.”

Gyun laughed in his face, a hand pushed his hair out of his eyes, as if he was pushing back some frustration instead. “I’m attempting to help you, son, I don’t want my friend’s kid to end up unhappy. You’re just the kind of man who’d be the most content with a doting, quiet woman who waits for you at home. I’ve seen a lot of men make the same mistake, like your father did with your mother. She was much too strong for him.”

“I presume you think you’re the one who should have her?”

“Precisely.”

“Fortunately, she’s not a possession to be had.”

Jumin shoulder-checked Gyun out the way, making his way back to Viv. 

 

 

 

 

Jumin stood up straight at the mic, as if he wasn’t fazed at all facing down a couple hundred people. Maybe he wasn’t. He spoke in front of small crowds almost every day, eyes on him 24/7. She shouldn’t be surprised that he was able to cast a glance her way and smile. Those watching found it to be an astounding event, most of them having seen that expression a literal handful of times, half of them knowing him his whole life. There were definitely people filming this whole thing, several red and blinking lights in the audience.

“I had a speech prepared, but I have completely forgotten it.”

The room laughed, Jumin shook his head slightly. Viv stood right off stage and grinned back up at him. She couldn’t help it, he was being so cute.

“Thank you all for being here tonight. It is about time that I get on with my task, is it not?” Again he glanced at her, motioned her to him with the curling of a finger of his left hand. “I could say this started as a simple arranged marriage, but that would be a lie.”

He turned slightly, looking at her as he spoke, speaking to her instead of the audience, as she slowly walked across the stage to join him at the middle of it. The way his eyes shimmered blue and gold under the stage lights had her mesmerized, a feeling she hadn’t experienced in a long time. The errant thought of putting a guitar back in his hands skimmed across her brain, memories of glancing across a stage at him while RFA was active becoming vivid in her mind.

“We met when I was a mere four years old. From that moment she’s brought joy and frustration to my life in equal spades. But most of all, she brought me love.”

She felt her chest constrict, her throat close. She’d just fixed her makeup, she couldn’t cry off all her mascara now.

“The first time she brought me love as a friend. Support, stability, security, loyalty. Both of us agreed to this engagement on the basis of those feelings cultivated over twenty years of friendship. I was confident that I could trust her, with the family we’d create, with myself. The second time she brought me the love of a partner, allowed me to bask in the radiance of it, gave it freely when I’m not sure if I earned it.”

“Jumin, please,” she begged, starting to become embarrassed, and he just turned a tender, almost-smile at her, the softest eyes, warm and open with flickers of color at the rim. A few people laughed just loud enough for it to float up to the stage.

“I was supposed to solidify an arrangement today, a strategic deal with the intent of creating trust between you,” he returned his attention to the audience, “and myself, my family, my future seat as CEO of C&R. This moment was to help you be confident in me and my capability to take over that position, that there was a lineage to be maintained, and she was chosen for that job because you are already confident in her. Many of you watched her grow up with me, many of you work with her now: it was a sound, strategic choice.”

He reached into his pocket, she heard him take a deep breath, look down at the small velvet box he held in his hands. It was then she realized he was nervous, the way his exhale shook, the way he smiled to himself, the way his head bowed and he let his hair fall into his face. He was so nervous, and it was so sweet that it hurt.

“I hope you will forgive me,” he practically whispered into the mic. “Forgive me, for that’s not what I plan to do today. Not anymore.”

She wanted to ask what he meant, but he began to fiddle with the mic, removed it from the stand, and slowly lowered himself to his knees. Viv shook her head, she didn’t want him to kneel to her, not in front of all these people. But he did more than that, not the fantasy ‘on one knee’ sort of kneeling, but both knees on the floor, sat back on his heels, and laid the mic on the ground between them. Then he reached up for her hands, kissed the back of each one, and turned those ocean-deep eyes up to her.

“I want to marry you, Sujin, because I love you. With every fiber of my body, I love you. I want you to marry me because you love me, Su, like I know you do. Like I know you always have. Please give me the privilege of having this for the rest of my life, let me attempt to give you even a fraction of what you’ve given me. Everyone, everything can go to hell, Su, please just allow me to keep the heart you’ve given me.”

Then the position made sense, because he bowed his head to his knees.

Viv started to panic because when she touched her face she found it was wet, and her voice was hoarse, caught on a sob when she called out to him, and he was bowing to the floor for her, and that just wasn’t something you were supposed to do. “Jumin— Juju _please_.”

When he rose his head, he smiled wryly up at her, when the only thing she could do was nod and go to him, falling into his lap and wrapping herself around him as tight as she could. She’d forgotten about the people watching them, and her makeup, and that they were on stage with a mic broadcasting their every word, every hiccup as she cried, touched to her very bones, to the bottom of her soul.

Finally, she was able to gasp out. “Yes, yes of course. I love you so much.”

She was reminded of the crowd when they cheered, as loud as a concert of thousands, as he wrapped around her even tighter, hugged her to him harder for just a moment. Then he pulled her back from him only enough to push a simple, thin silver band with a moderately sized yellow diamond onto her left hand’s ring finger. Both of them looked at the ring for a long moment, sharing a tender smile, then he used the freed hand to curl around her jaw and bring her to him for a gentle kiss.  


	6. Send Her My Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter about confrontations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter without a song written by me. Its theme is ["Send Her My Love" by Journey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InyWhQLfO7A)

Jumin wasn’t sure how they’d gotten into this position, but he wasn’t going to worry about it now. No one was home, the peace of the afternoon rain on the window lulling them into a comfortable silence. Finally, they didn’t have anything to do. Not band practice, not English classes or shadowing executives in the office, not violin lessons or music theory at the university. It was so rare that they shared these moments that he was hesitant to intrude on it.

He ran his fingers through her hair, long and soft and smelled of spring. She’d confided how jealous she was of Rika’s natural blonde, thought about dying her own hair a color that would make her prettier, maybe start wearing contacts that would make her brown eyes more unique. He tried to discourage it, hated how insecure the girls made each other feel, everything got so competitive that it seemed it was hard for them to be friends. He knew the guys who liked her at school were afraid to approach her because of the two ‘big shots’ she was attached at the hip to, and the possessive part of him wanted to keep it that way despite she’d never blame them, she’d always think it was her that was inadequate.

She didn’t believe him when he said she was beautiful, so he’d stopped a long time ago. That her maple-brown eyes were the keys to unlock his heart, that they glittered gold in the sunlight, that they smiled even when her lips didn’t.

“Suji?”

“Hm?”

Words said so many times that it echoed in his head, a hope that he had to keep buried, a little black box that was opened and rifled through whenever he held her like this. She was so soft and warm in his arms, so near he could feel her chest rise and fall against his own. Pain, real and heavy, her heartbeat that seemed to stab between his ribs.

‘It’s common for people like us to marry for the company’s growth.’ ‘It’ll be easy for you to gain your position, you have to yield your decisions on some things.’ ‘You’re young and you don’t know what you’re doing, you can’t live life for yourself.’

Words that took away yet another piece of agency, yet another part of life he was guilted into willingly sacrificing. He wondered who he was outside the goal to be the perfect son, whether it would be worth it in the end to lose himself. To lose every part of himself. But he loved his father, the one reliable person in his life, the one constant, the one person who loved him simply because he existed… and so he did what he could to please him.

If there was one thing that should be his, couldn’t it be this?

“May I kiss you?”

Impulsive. That’s what it was, and he'd carefully made sure that he wasn't. He brushed hair back from her eyes as they fluttered open, he wondered what it would be like to wake up like this with her each morning, would it make the outlook of his monotonous life worth it. He wondered if he would be willing to throw away the comforts of a cushy seat in his father’s company, more money than he knew what to do with, for this. For the way her lips parted and the way she blinked away the vestiges of sleep, the way she smiled when she realized she was still in his arms.

“Sorry, I must have dozed off,” she almost-whispered, voice still warm and soft.

“You’re fine,” he returned, matching volume for volume, trying to not bring her up so far she’d pull away.

“Was I dreaming?” Su smiled wider, self-depreciating, puffing silent laughter through her lips. “I thought you asked to kiss me.”

“I did,” he confided, a secret he didn’t want to allow himself. Part of him hoped she’d deny him, hoped she hadn’t heard him, hoped she wouldn’t ask and just kiss him on her own. “You can say ‘no’.”

“Can I say yes?”

He wondered if a heart could break and heal at the same time.

“Say yes.”

“Yes.”

Jumin laughed, felt her adjust, wrapped her arms around his neck and close the rest of the small distance between them, pulled him lay flush to her. It was pure instinct alone that had him wrapping his arm around her waist, fixing the numb arm under her head to prop himself above her, only letting a small amount of his weight pin her to his bed. It was sloppy, he didn’t exactly know what he was doing other than to listen to the drive his body sent through him at the feel of her tongue against his, the compulsion to lick her lips, clicking teeth together and biting a little too hard.

Breathless, they separated, he leaned his forehead against hers, feeling the heat of her pants across his lips. Knew he couldn’t do it again.

“I love you,” he told her, felt more than heard the words being said back. He was sure she could tell it was new, that the words weren’t for a little sister anymore, that he hadn’t see her as a sibling for a long time, that this meant so much more than that and—

He chuckled at himself, frustrated, angry, sad. It was the only way he knew how to react to those emotions now, pushing them down where they couldn’t be seen, ignoring them until he was numb. It was obnoxious when they clawed their way back up, disappointment in himself taking over his thoughts, scolding himself mentally until he was able to push them away again. It wasn’t working so well this time.

“I want to be able to marry you,” he told her, finally, letting himself fall on his back beside her.

“Jumin,” he heard her sigh, felt her settle back beside him, resting her head on his shoulder. He carded his fingers through her hair to comfort himself, felt silly for needing to do it, but the motion and the feel of silken strands slipping from his fingers calmed him somewhat. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Su, don’t apologize to me. You don’t have a choice either.”

“I know, I just…”

Turning his head to look at her again, he watched as she rubbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.

“I want to marry you, too. I think we’d be really happy together.”

He hummed in agreement, another of the thousand reasons he felt she was perfect for him. They were best friends, even if they weren’t in love the comfort of being _himself_ at home with the privacy of his partner brought him so much peace. He wanted to be able to go home and not have to keep on the mask for a spouse that would expect it from him always. Su had her own public persona, so far different from the soft girl in his arms with a vulgar vocabulary that sometimes he didn’t recognize her. Though, sometimes he didn’t recognize himself.

“If we ever have the option, I want to take it,” he sighed. “I just don’t know how to make that happen.”

“There has to be a way,” she looked up in his eyes, smiled. “Right? We’ve always figured things out on our own.”

She was right. Patience and hard work was coursing through his blood; he’d find a way to stave off his father’s marriage arrangements until he had the one that would suit him, this one, the one he longed for. He’d figure it out. It might be tiring and difficult, but he’d prove to his father that he was a worthy son without needing to bend himself to this one rule.

But there was just one thing.

“You might not love me then.”

He felt her shrug. “Of course I will, I’ll always love you as a friend at least. Don’t you think it would be better to marry your best friend than some creep you don’t know? I’d choose you every single time, Juju.”

With that reassurance, he was able to push down the feelings of hurt around his father’s use of this last thing that should be his own. He’d stay strong, he’d wait for as long as it took, he’d lock up all these feelings of desperately loving her and keep them safe until he could give them to her again. No matter what.

“I promise, I’m going to marry you some day, Sujin.”

He found her hand, hooked their pinkies together. They were too old for it, he knew, but it still meant something to them.

“I promise I’ll say ‘yes’.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I just don’t even understand how this is an acceptable thing to do to a person.”

Viv looked down at the tabloid, the front pages with an image from their engagement party. Jumin’s arms was crossed over his chest in the image, and he looked pissed. Or at least, Viv knew he was when she looked at it but it was likely other people couldn’t tell since his face was actually pretty normal. The key was looking at his neck, there was a vein bulging there like it might burst. Sarah was standing so close to him that it looked like they were touching, looking up at him, apparently attempting to talk to him. Viv told her not to do that, but it looked like she’d chosen to approach Jumin like any old guy despite it.

Giant black letters stacked up on one side:

**‘Jumin Han’s Fiancée?’**

Jumin scoffed, putting the tabloid back on the shelf before replacing his hand where it was at the small of her back, pushing her to keep walking down the street. Viv shifted her bag on her shoulder, tilted her head back to look up at Jumin’s face, and tried to give him a reassuring smile. She was sure it didn’t actually look reassuring at all.

At the red light, he stepped closer and bent to kiss her, a tender, not at all sexual kiss. One that was very obviously meant to comfort her, even though that was the last thing she needed at the moment. She wasn’t even bothered that much. Viv hoped that it helped him, at least. Was he upset? It was hard to tell. Things like this didn’t usually phase him, half the time he didn’t even know he’d been in the news again for one thing or another.

No, actually, she knew exactly what was bothering him.

“Just don’t feel like you need to protect me, just take care of your business. I’ll be fine.” She nudged him with her elbow.

“I know you will.” She watched him as much of the tension bled from his muscles, tight shoulders and an over-extended spine relaxing somewhat. “Let us not dwell on the matter now, then. Would you have time tonight, after the meeting? I’d like to invite you over for dinner.” He smiled at her, opening the door to the C&R building for her to pass through first.

The change of subject was abrupt but welcome, letting her relax. With the playful raise of her eyebrows, she trailed behind him as he led her to the meeting room. There were a thousand conference rooms, she never knew which one it would be.

“Just dinner?”

“No.” He threw a smug look over his shoulder.

“Promises, promises.”

“I am a man of my word.”

“Then I’d love to join you, Mr. Han.”

He paused in front of the conference room door. “I must make a quick call, then. Please go in and take a seat before me.” He was already slipping his phone out of his pocket, handing her his briefcase. When she had it, he collected her face in his freed hand, tilted her chin to him to allow for him to slide his lips through hers briefly. Then, as if he’d done nothing at all, he paced away, leaving her to shove her way through the door.

Most people were already there, some of them greeting her when she entered the room which she answered with polite nods here and there, and plopped Jumin’s briefcase on the table next to her. She made sure to sit in a seat where the one next to her was also vacant, knowing Jumin would be pretty put out if she didn’t, though he’d never say so. She set her own bag down, then turned his briefcase right-side-up and opened it. After rummaging for a moment, she found what she was looking for, a manila folder labelled with her name on it, paperclipped closed.

A note scrawled in Jumin’s fine handwriting was in the bottom right corner on a cat-shaped post-it note, that said simply ‘please review.’ Then she closed his briefcase and took her seat. Inside the folder was a bunch of business documents and contracts, proposals. What in the world did he want her to look at these for?

“Viv!”

Someone was happy to see her, or at least it seemed. The door slammed and Jumin took the seat next to her while she felt a hand squeeze her shoulder, drawing her attention. That would be Kenji. “Yo, Mrs. Han.”

“I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

He ignored her. He was going to continue to ignore her. She heard Jumin chuckle. “I’m glad you finally took the position. Welcome to the big leagues, Viv.”

“I basically wasn’t given a choice between you, dad, and Jumin. You guys ganged up on me and everything.”

Kenji shrugged, the one hand without a bag in it lifting to assist in illustrating his innocence. “I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to get the right people on my staff. In this industry talent needs to proceed seniority sometimes.”

“Yeah, that kind of management breeds resentment and you know it,” she crossed her arms over her chest and sat back to look at the middle-aged senior music producer, subsequently crossing her legs. A black heel bobbed in an attempt to show her annoyance. “There are people who have been at AM twice as long and probably should be taking this position instead of me.”

“Bullshit,” Kenji laughed. “What you’ll realize when you’ve been a department head for a while, you have to ride the line between meritocracy and seniority or you lose your talent to companies who are willing to promote based on accomplishment. The music industry is all about relevancy, otherwise you end up with people who are incompetent in positions they can’t handle simply because they’ve been there longer.” He leaned against the table next to her. “You’re just worried because you hate drama. It’ll blow over in no time.”

She thought if Kenji did the promoting himself, no one would have the right to complain like they would with her father or Jumin signing the paperwork but at the end of the day she knew he was right – it didn’t matter who promoted her. There are people who believed she was incapable and would never believe she belonged in that position because she was her father’s daughter. Trying to navigate around the issue to avoid conflict would only stunt herself and no one else would care.

“All right, but I’m not going to deal with that. I’ll fire people if I have to.”

Kenji laughed. “Sounds good to me! But it will be fine, Vivere. Don’t worry so much.”

“For my sake, I hope you’re right. The stress makes it hard to compose.”

Another hearty laugh jolted from Kenji. “When are we going to work on _you_ releasing an album, hm?”

Viv shrugged, feeling her face heat up from the undue praise. “Seriously, I’m not that good a vocalist.”

“I tend to disagree,” grumbled Jumin, his attention diverting from whoever he was talking to just to send a scolding glance her way. Did he really just cut someone off to interject? Was he really listening to their conversation the whole time? It created a tumble of laughter from Kenji, who had pressed a hand to his mouth to muffle the sound. “Now, then, it is about time we started the meeting.”

Kenji bowed his head enough to be polite to Jumin and held out a fist for Viv to knock her knuckles against, after which he bumbled to his seat. She was really glad that Kenji was her boss, he was a pretty great guy. Jumin leaned over to her and tapped a finger to the folder she had dug out from his case, getting her attention. He was looking ahead at the speaker.

“Look over these, I’d like your opinion on them,” he whispered.

“Mine? Why? This is outside my expertise.”

“You have good instincts.”

She took the documents from the folder without a word, looking through each one. The first of them was a proposal about the acquisition of a small food company called “Sugar Round” for 3 million dollars. What kind of food company, though? She’d never heard of the place before, and none of the pages he’d given her had any real information about it, other than the owner of the company was a woman named Sarah Choi.

 _That_ Sarah Choi? No way.

There was a note In Jumin’s handwriting that said ‘offer of marriage to reduce buying price to 2 million’.

She pulled out her phone, looking up ‘Sugar Round,’ on Google and finding very little information about it. In fact, the results were not enough to fill out two pages. The third result down was an article about ‘Sugar Round’ going bankrupt, throwing up tons of red flags about the business.

She nudged Jumin, whispering to avoid interrupting the meeting. “What’s giving this to me about?”

“I thought you should be aware of it.”

“Did you look anything up for it yet?”

“I haven’t. I hadn’t planned on it.”

“You might want to check this out.”

She handed over her phone, watched him read it. He frowned so slightly that it was hard to tell but it was there. “I wonder if Father knows about this.”

The second was a proposal for a cat spa. She wrote a big ‘no’ on it, then listed out several reasons why the vast majority of services offered by ‘spas’ or ‘salons’ for cats were actually harmful to them. On top of that, if there was some sort of service a cat would need, people should just take the animal to a vet. They usually did things like clip nails and clean ears if necessary for the animal’s health. She suggested he make a donation to animal shelters instead.

The third proposal was an expansion of the coffee shop that had picked up business after a new drama was filmed there. She left a note on that one to ‘put Jaehee on it, she knows a shit ton about coffee’, putting it into the pile he’d created for things to actually pursue.

“Miss Park, do you have any news from Ars Moriendi?” the director of the meeting came around to her, getting her attention from the stack of papers Jumin gave her.

“Uh, not really. This is my first meeting, so…” she looked at Kenji and shrugged, not really sure what she was supposed to say.

“Did you get a chance to look over that document for AM?” Jumin asked her, shuffling the pile of papers he’d put in front of her.

“Ah, no.” She took it from him, looking it over. He’d taken it from deeper in the stack. “Oh! The thing about the trainee acquisition. I’m not on that project so I only know what I know from Dad by proximity, Kenji?”

“You know more about it than I do, currently, Viv,” Kenji shrugged.

“Well… as far as I understand, we’ve decided to stick to formed groups that are a year or less out from debut. The thought is that while we have the resources to start bringing in trainees, there’s a lot that is tied up in court. There aren’t any updates that I’ve been told about, at least, from that point, but dad said the proceedings are likely to take a couple years before we’re ready. In the meantime we’re looking at lawyers that specialize in entertainment, especially internationally.”

“This document is…”

“Several months old.” She looked around for a name or a department, but she couldn’t find it a name or a version number, and her father always signed his name to his documents sent around. “I have the updated one I can send you. It’s for the budget of new artist acquisition for the next fiscal year. We should obtain three new artists. It’s conservative, but when we were discussing it, the market is getting oversaturated and giving each artist an adequate promotion schedule around their debut is more important.”

“Only three?”

She turned her attention back to Jumin, who’d asked. “There’s a lot happening right now. China is loosening its laws around artists and the kinds of music that can be brought there, America has a growing interest in K-pop for the first time since Psy, and no one still knows how to crack the Japanese market. Plus with Dad in exit strats, production is spread pretty thin right now trying to find ways to distribute or finish his projects.”

Kenji tilted his head at her, tapped a hand on his chin. “Do you think we should be hiring?”

“I do think so,” she nodded, looking at her boss quizzically. He knew what her opinion was of the matter, but they hadn’t gotten the go-ahead from upper human resource management. “But specifically, it would do us a lot of good if we would hire in sound engineers on salary instead of keeping them freelance. I know it’s an asset for artist’s schedules, but when the busiest recording seasons roll around, we end up scrambling to find people to work when we have last minute bookings. I try to eliminate it as much as possible, but there’s _always_ a few late.”

“Interesting.”

“I mean, don’t take my word for it, I’m not the person to consult on that matter,” her head shook at Jumin.

“Sure you are, Viv,” Kenji admonished her. “You plan out the schedules of the album releases. You have been for the last couple years.”

She shrugged. “I just did that as a favor to Dad, he was always swamped.”

“And you never put your name on that? I thought Mr. Park was in charge of album release schedules,” her fiancée leveled a look at her. “When you said you did a little of everything, I didn’t know to what extent.”

“I told you Dad’s been grooming me for administration since I officially started working here,” she laughed, sort of nervously, casting a glance around the room of people who seemed to either be surprised or otherwise. A couple of them seemed… upset? Annoyed? When Zen fussed about nepotism, in this case he’d been exactly right. “I mean, it’s not like I wanted this position,” she squeaked, blushing. “I’m here because you guys made me.”

“You’re simply a much more lucrative asset as department head, Viv,” Kenji laughed. “Besides, I promised you’d stay in the studio the vast majority of the time.”

“I’m just doing this because it’ll relieve some of dad’s workload to have me on hand, he’s been overworking himself.”

“If I may interject,” Kaleb Shen, head of accounts, leaned forward to set his chin in his hand on the table. Someone she dealt with often, and a really nice person. “You don’t need to be so nervous, Miss Park. Your help is greatly appreciated, I’m sure.”

“I hope my daughter grows up to be like you, Sujin,” Mr. Lee grinned, she knew he was trying to comfort her. It was sweet, if not laced with ulterior motives “I should ask Park his secret.”

A few seats over was Gyun, arms crossed over his chest, a smile on his lips, leaning back in his seat, focused on her. He would be there, right? He was Chief of Communications. Everyone was focused on her at the moment, there was no reason to think he was being creepy. If she did, everyone in the room was being creepy.

“Kenji, as her boss, would you mind introducing us to the newbie to the board room?” suggested Kewon Seon, Chief of Analytics.

“Sure. This is Sujin Park, Head of Album Concepting, and the fiancée of Mr. Han, here.”

Her head shook, mouthing no to her boss multiple times as the senior managers and officers, their assistants, and their department heads burst in gossip. With a heavy sigh, she tried not to seem too upset, outwardly. Inside she was a mess. She knew she shouldn’t have taken the position. Now she would never hear the end of it.

“Come on, Viv, you should be flaunting, not being embarrassed.”

“I’m happy, but I’m not going to just be annoying about it just because I’m female, yikes, Ken.”

“Mr. Han, perhaps I am overstepping my bounds,” someone Viv didn’t know started worriedly. “There was a tabloid today that talked about you being engaged to someone else.”

“I am quite aware, though I appreciate the notification.”

“Oh, that garbage?” Mr. Lee laughed like someone told a hilarious joke. “If you saw him propose you wouldn’t even wipe your ass with that trash.”

Then the whole room practically exploded.

“It was like a scene straight out of a drama.”

“You should’ve seen the women that came to try for a last ditch effort to snatch themselves a Han!”

“She was so embarrassed, I would have been, too!”

“He wasn’t, though, Han was as smug as ever.”

“I don’t know if I have ever seen a man so happy before.”

“We should produce a drama from it! It would be insanely popular!”

“I hate to admit it, but that was damn romantic.”

“Romantic and cringy.”  

“I meant –“ they were pretty obviously cut off by, well, looking at him. “Congratulations, Sir.”

“Thank you,” Jumin cracked the smallest semblance of a smile, took Viv’s hand to place the lightest kiss on her knuckles. “Now then, my love, back to work.”

 

***

 

“It’s pathetic, that’s what it is.”

“I’m sorry, son, I’m not sure what to do about it.”

“I ask that you have a conversation with your _friend_ , Father.”

Jumin paced quickly into his office, past Assistant Kang, with his father on his heels. She seemed to have something to say before she realized Chairman Han was with him, sat back in her seat, and remained quiet. It was also likely that he did not seem in the best mood, because he was not. Viv told him to not feel overprotective of her. He knew he didn’t need to be even though the urge to cover and hide her came up occasionally when he saw the tabloids printing a variation of the same ‘article’ every day for a week.

They were going to have a very public relationship and that was just the nature of it, of who he was and the position he held, and that’s that.

No, what made him angry was the fact that it was clearly his father’s girlfriend who orchestrated this whole thing. With what money, he wondered? With whose picture? It was a good photo, looked like it was taken by a professional with a least a decent camera. Who was attending that could have facilitated something like that taking place? Glam Choi hadn’t taken the picture herself, for sure, there was a photographer that he’d hired for the event, but he was already vetted and had signed a contract to not sell those photos in any capacity, a non-disclosure-agreement. He’d even denied the man the ability to use the images for his personal portfolio.

As he often did, he wished Jihyun was around. He would have gladly taken photos of the event, would have engaged them, and he wouldn’t have needed to worry. Magnificent images that were meaningful, that they could even frame, and he would have been present for some of them.

It was useless thinking about that when it wasn’t possible to make it reality.

“I don’t think Glam had anything to do with it,” he heard his father say after he closed the door of his office. “She has no reason to—”

“Father,” Jumin cut him off, waved him to sit in the chair before his desk. When he was seated, Jumin leaned at the edge of his desk, pressed fingers into the bridge of his nose. “Father, who else would have motive to sell an image to the tabloids about who my fiancée is?”

“There are likely more people who want to break you two up. You’re the most sought-after bachelor in the country.”

“Those that we personally invited? The guest list was carefully constructed by both myself and Sujin.”

“Well, your mother was there, so…”

“ _I_ invited my mother, as I should have.” he deadpanned. “In fact, I know that there were several people who were _not_ invited, and each one of them were there because of you.”

“You mean Glam and Sarah? Well –“

“And Jinho Gyun.”

“Why would you accuse me of that?”

“He told me, Father. I, of course, spoke to every guest present.”

“He should have been invited. You can’t just exclude investors and officers from events that are so important.”

“You mean, the event that was so important that you brought two uninvited unaffiliated guests? Attempted to stop the event from proceeding as planned? Interrupted with a solicitous woman and insults to the host? What of the other uninvited investors, why were they not notified?”

Chairman Han sighed, shook his head. Jumin stared at him, hard, eyes flinty and cold. “Pao Kim was talking about it and Gyun told me he wasn’t invited. I assumed you’d just forgot. You had to plan the event in two weeks. I thought you were bound to forget a few things.”

“Gyun and I are not cordial, I thought you were privy to that.”

“It seemed to me he was… he seemed excited that you were getting married to Sujin.”

That was a contradiction if he’d ever heard one. Wasn’t he the one who told his father that he didn’t care about her credentials, she wasn’t good enough for him physically? He was becoming a more solidifying factor in this whole debacle than he first thought. As Communications Officer, it was possible _he_ was the one who orchestrated everything with tabloids, though not likely. Did he even know Sarah Choi?

“And the reasons you brought Ms. Choi?”

“We’d talked about it and concluded you were making a hasty decision.”

“Father, do you realize that breaking off my month-long engagement with a woman I’ve known my whole life in favor of a woman I had met mere minutes before would be a much _more_ hasty decision?”

Han brushed his hair back with a hand and a sheepish smile. “Ah, that’s true. I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Of course not. Jumin sighed, exasperated. He walked around to sink into the other chair, covering his face with a hand. What was he supposed to do with his father? Was he so blind to the whims of the women he wanted that he wouldn’t think for himself?

“Jumin, you seem distressed.”

“Yes. Yes, Father, very much so.”

“I’m not going to bother you about your marriage any longer, Jumin, if that’s what is making you upset. I can’t even imagine being able to—”

“I am very sure you have not been listening to me, Father.”

“The tabloid, with Sarah, correct?”

“I want to know precisely why you think it is not possible one of them did not have that tabloid published.”

“Glam was the one that suggested we back off after what Sujin said to me. That girl is sharp.”

“And what was that, exactly?”

“I’d rather not repeat it, son.”

She’d somehow hurt his pride, then, about a matter that was private to even him. Jumin knew Viv harbored a few secrets, things he couldn’t get her to tell him about out of respect for those who were involved. His father would’ve jumped on the chance to tell him she’d threatened him, otherwise. Still, it only told him Glam was more conniving than he first thought.

He wouldn’t press him for it. “And Sarah?”

“According to Glam she doesn’t want to marry you. She thinks you’re mean and you have terrible taste in women.”

Jumin laughed at the sheer audacity of it. A compliment, coming from her.

 

 

***

 

Viv piled her hair up on top of her head, secured it with a band, hip-checking the door to the coffee shop. Then she scanned the room, finding Yoosung and sitting in the booth across from him, leaning forward to snatch his earbuds out of his ear.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, startled, rearing back.

With a smirk, Viv shrugged. “Wear wireless ones.”

“Ugh,” he made a sound of frustration at her, but it was tinged with a smile.

“Let me order you something. In the mood for anything in particular?”

“You can get me whatever you’re having,” he answered, a typical one from him.

Viv purposely asked for a full pot of coffee for them to share and a few coffee cakes. Sugar fuels the brain, after all, and it looked like he was here to study. Viv, not having siblings, had always wished for one to take care of the way Jumin and Jihyun did for her, but Yoosung and the twins were good enough substitutes for her. She knew he liked coffee cake, and while she would have normally bought herself chocolate donuts, she wanted to make sure she got something he’d want.

“So, what’s up, lil’bro?”

“Huh?” his head shook. “That’s the thing, I’m fine. I mean, maybe I complain a lot but it just helps to get it out, you know?”

Her chin plopped into her hand, tilting to one side as she looked at him. Dark circles, a slight frown to a neutral face, skin sort of splotchy even though it was warm inside the shop, eyes dull. There was so much more there than he was going to tell her, she knew, and it felt like prying, she knew that too, and Yoosung tried so hard to be independent when it wasn’t in his nature – it made her worry when he was unwilling to automatically spill everything like he normally would. She sighed.

“You haven’t been around much in the chat lately,” he continued after a few moments, when he’d put away his books as the coffee and cakes were served. Absently she dropped three cubes of sugar into his coffee and two in her own. He probably hadn’t meant to sound accusatory, but it sort of did. That was ok, he was right, after all. “I know you’re busy, but you could, I don’t know, talk to us.”

“I’m sorry, Yoosung.”

His mouth parted to say something, and then he seemed to deflate. “Yeah, I know that’s a lot to ask. You and Jumin had to deal with a some crazy stuff at your party. It was nice seeing Mr. Park again, though, he didn’t look so good. Is there something wrong?”

Viv flinched. She hadn’t mentioned much of it to the boys. “He’s ok, just, uh, what happens when you live life the way he has. It takes its toll.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t have a lot of time, so let’s get back to why I’m here, alright?” she continued, gently but firm. His shoulders dropped. She took a drink of her coffee. “Are you really failing all your classes?”

“Not exactly,” he cringed, frowning at his hands. “I might have exaggerated some, but you know, I can get kicked from my program.”

She sighed, took a moment to think, looked around the café, then directed her attention back on him. “I want you to take a long, hard look at things and ask yourself if this is what you want to be doing, alright? Maybe it’s not about doing the thing that makes you the happiest. People who say that, they’re delusional. It’s about doing the thing that you’re able to persevere through even when you feel like shit. That’s what you should devote your life to.”

“How did you know what you wanted to do with your life? You’ve been tied up in the music thing since you’ve been born, it seems like,” he sighed. “I don’t know if I want to be a vet, or a musician, or anything at all. I feel like… I can’t enjoy any of it anymore. It seems like the only thing that makes me want to wake up in the morning is video games.” He ran a hand over his face, then he shoved his cake in his mouth.

It made her feel a little better to watch him eat. Maybe it was something that was bleeding out towards everyone she cared for from the fact that her father’s appetite had been sparse for a while.

“You’re right, I never questioned whether or not music would become my life,” Viv shrugged, smiled a bit despite herself. “The questions I had were more specific. Do I join the orchestra like my mother? Do I become an idol like my father wanted? I wanted to make music but I didn’t want to perform for people, so I’ve ended up here, and it’s comfortable.”

“Is that why you won’t join Carpe Diem? Zen’s asked like a dozen times.”

Ah, so he knew about that. “Yeah, that’s about it.”

“I wish I loved music the way that you do, Viv. I wish it flowed through me like that.”

Viv had the urge to tell him that it did, that music flowed through everyone, because that’s what she truly believed. Every person in the world had at least one song of their own, every voice has the ability to sing. If only you will it to. Instead, she kept quiet, poured them both another cup of coffee, took a bite of her coffee cake. Will him without acknowledging it to keep talking.

“I think I might leave Carpe Diem. We should be looking for Rika, anyway.”

Viv inwardly sighed, careful not to bring that energy to the surface. It had been two years since Rika left and Yoosung had been devastated, had lost who he was without her. She wondered how he’d gotten attached to her like that, how he was able to look past all of the signs of something being wrong and keep a blindly pure image of her in his mind. Even Jihyun couldn’t do that. She wondered if it was because he was older, and because Yoosung was younger. Perhaps because it was scary to see someone you loved as someone that wasn’t perfect, he’d covered his eyes like a child trapping themselves in a closet during danger.

“You know, I keep thinking that you and Jumin know some stuff about Rika and Jihyun and you’re not telling me.”

“You’re partially correct,” she shrugged one shoulder. “Though, Jumin doesn’t know anything so please don’t bother him about it. I’m telling you the truth about that.”

“So you do?”

“Some.” She frowned. “I can’t tell you where she is or what she’s doing, I haven’t seen or talked to her for as long as you have. I wish she had kept in contact with us, maybe told us that she’s ok, but she hasn’t.”

“So what kind of information can you tell me about her?”

That did make Viv sigh audibly. “That’s the thing, I can’t tell you anything. I love and respect her too much. She trusted me, confided in me. And… as much as I miss her, I know she’ll come back when she’s ready.”

His head shook. “I wish I could be angry at you for that. I just wish she told _me_ what was wrong.”

“I know, but you were, you know, a kid,” she smiled a bit wryly. “You still kind of are, compared to everyone. Not just in age but… you know Rika went through a lot of messed up shit when she was little, and she had a hard time figuring out how to deal with it. There was no way for you to relate, you know? She didn’t want you to relate. She’s always felt like she needed to protect you from things, even if she had to keep it from you.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” he took a drink of his coffee. “You always fought with her about that.”

“Yeah, but this time I can’t defend you. She has to solve her own problems, you know? Sometimes we all need some time to figure ourselves out. Like you do now.”

“I don’t want her to come back and find out I’ve been a mess the entire time,” he laughed self-depreciatingly.

“Then don’t be. You have control over that, Yoosung.”

“Do I?”

“Sure you do. You can do nothing, or do something. And if you need help, asking for it is doing something.”

He nodded, finished chewing a large bite of coffee cake, and washed it down with another swig of coffee.

“Then… I could use some help.”

“Alright, then.” She watched him drop his head somewhat, and reached across the table to lift it back up, fingers under his chin. “Hey, hold your head high. It takes a strong person to ask for help. A much stronger person than you even understand.”

“You think I can do this?”

“You just did.”

 

 

***

 

 

Jihyun and Jumin at their high school graduation. Rika and Vivere at prom, Jumin and Viv. Three children holding each other, a little girl in the middle almost half the size of the two boys. The RFA, whole and happy. Viv and Jumin, a violin and a cello and a stage. The twins and Yoosung, having fallen asleep in grass and sunlight. Jihyun and Rika under a cherry blossom tree. Zen as a knight in a play. Jumin and Viv smiling across the stage, guitars in hand, sweat-slicked bangs and hair blowing from fans.

Jumin and Viv, smiling across each other’s lips, holding each other close, radiating happiness.   

It rankled his nerves as he watched her pause and take in each photo lined up on his bookshelf, absorbed each memory that was special to him, found each face that was part of a family he so excruciatingly curated. Each person that entered his office scanned over that particular shelf, but they did so quickly, didn’t linger too long, would sometimes comment here or there about something innocuous: “I didn’t know you played guitar”, “I didn’t know you knew Zen”, “I didn’t know you knew Carpe Diem”. Harmless things that said nothing about the people in the photographs, nothing that revealed thoughts and motives.

He had to tamp down his visceral ire at the woman who had the gall it took to take in how much he loved Viv and kept standing before him after attempting to take her place.

Jumin gestured towards one of the plush armchairs set a few feet in front of his desk, where she sat after being given permission. “Miss Choi,” he began. He leveled that blank, slightly irritated, and thoroughly disinterested gaze at the magenta-haired woman. “What brings you here today?”

“I’m here about Sugar Round,” she said, finally turning her attention back to him. “We haven’t received any correspondence and considering –“

“I will not be purchasing. Excuse me, Miss Choi, but I do not like to be taken for a fool.”

“I’m not trying to –“

“Sugar Round had to declare bankruptcy. Instead of liquidating your assets and paying off your debt, you’d decided Chapter 11: restructuring under the guidance of the bankruptcy court. Since then, not only have you incurred more debt personally and as a business, your business was never going to survive. You want me to, what, purchase it at ten times its potential value?”

Miss Choi sucked in a breath, as if she was grounding herself, a momentary look disbelief on her face before she assumed an vacant smile in the wake of his hard assessment. “You looked into it.”

“Perhaps you have heard of the internet. What did you expect?”

She sighed, her focus out of the window while she readjusted in her seat. “I did expect that answer. I had an offer to make: if we got married, I’d sell to Chairman Han for 2 million, which would be actual amount of Sugar Round’s debt.”

“Ah, since the other million would have been to cover your personal debts, which I would be settling with my own money,” he barely lifted one brow, a bit of amusement. She must have thought he was an idiot.

Another deep breath, and the clench of her hands into fists along the arms of the chair, her jaw tensed. “Putting money aside, it’s possible that we could be… a good match. Then I would be… worth the investment.”

Leaning forward in his chair, putting an elbow on his desk, he rested his chin in his hand. She was very different from the first time he’d met her, and he wondered what was the real personality. He let a bit of his irritation go, letting that rational calm take over, though probably not enough for her to notice that it was even there.

“Miss Choi. Is that what you really think?”

She finally met his eyes. “I – no. No, I don’t.”

Jumin nodded. That was just as his father told him. Did she know that he’d given him that detail? If she did, why did she bother to come in here and make the same proposal another time? The only reason he’d even agreed to see her was because his father made the appointment, and Assistant Kang had no idea who she was.

“The feeling is mutual, I assure you. Now, then, were you the one who claimed to be my fiancée to the media?”

“Glam did that,” her head shook. “She was upset about your little spectacle of a proposal and wanted to twist the story so that it would be directed towards me as the recipient.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Well, it’s not like it worked anyway, your friends posted the whole thing on the internet and everyone knows it wasn’t me. Vivere and I look nothing alike.”

She didn’t keep talking, forcing him to prompt: “I must ask, why are you in my office, Miss Choi?”

“Considering none of this worked, I shouldn’t be here anymore,” though despite saying this, she didn’t stand. “There was something that your fiancée said to me, gave advice that I didn’t take. It seems she actually knows you pretty well. I made an enemy of you the moment we met. It was a stupid move on my part.”

“Is that an apology?”

“Yes, an inefficient one. I’d like to try to start over. It seems we may be interacting more than we’d like due to Chairman Han and Glam being together, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to be enemies.”

“Oh?” But why? Wasn’t she just her student? The answer was no, she shouldn’t be in the picture anymore. Why would they be ‘interacting more’?

“It might be in my best interest to not burn bridges so quickly.”

Sarah Choi stood and took a step closer to his desk, but kept a proper distance this time, kept her posture straight, putting out a hand to shake.

“I’m Sarah Choi. It’s nice to make your acquaintance.”

Jumin briefly tried to take note of this person, who was one-hundred-eighty degrees different from the woman who pushed her body on him and spoke to him like a child at the party, fed him the things she’d probably thought he wanted to hear. He wasn’t sure he wanted to believe anything without ample evidence, especially a personality switch like this. Was this the fake woman, was that? Was both? It was impossible to tell, but he would remain prudent about the matter, he wouldn’t allow his care for his father to get in the way of his judgement. He’d bide his time, though he was sure he’d never actually trust her.

As was the proper response, he returned the handshake. “Likewise.”

 

 

***

 

 

“ _One, two, three!”_

Zen, Seven, and Viv tossed back their shots of tequila. Jumin rose his glass of whiskey on the rocks to join the toast but didn’t chug it. Yoosung had a beer he sipped. The club was packed, it was the debut of a underground artist who had already released an album on Soundcloud and had accumulated quite a following. They were in the VIP seating, having secured it specifically because Viv was able to hand over a business card to the bouncer with her credentials. That almost always made sure she got what she wanted at places like this, which was to not end up trampled in the mosh pit but not end up where the acoustics sucked ass.

They had an especially good lead guitarist, but their vocalist could use some work. Not because they didn’t sound good, but because the way they were straining through their belts, the bulging veins in their neck after two songs, the tense, forward jaw position, and the way they got raspy by the third song said they didn’t have a good intuition of what good singing felt like. They’d probably lose their voice by the end of the show and be unable to talk for the rest of the week. Long term, their range would shorten and the life span of their voice would be like, three years, tops. It was a combination of hard rock and edm, working in some post-punk clarity to update their sound. Viv _was_ interested in signing them, though she’d have to put the lead singer on probation until some throat work and proper vocal lessons were completed. They also probably smoked. That sort of vocal distortion wasn’t created or controlled. She had a few people in mind that could front them with their eyes closed.

Viv was decked out in all her rocker gear, but it was par the course for this kind of establishment. She was going to freeze when they got back outside, though she hoped she’d be drunk enough where it wouldn’t matter. Black, torn jeans that you could easily see her tattoo through, heeled black boots to her knees, hair up in a long ponytail, and a Black Sabbath sleeveless t-shirt that was ripped up in the back. Each of them were wearing a variation of the theme except Jumin, who had at least ditched most of his suit from the work day in favor of the pants and button up shirt.

Jumin liked to take advantage of the ponytail and their current company by dropping a kiss at the back of her neck occasionally. Viv tried to ignore him, opting to pour another shot instead.

“You should eat something before you get sick,” her fiancée practically purred into her neck.

“What are you thinking about?” she turned to look at him, getting handed a menu.

“It wasn’t whatever your naughty mind conjured up, I assure you.”

He got her there, and so she directed her attention to figuring out food.

“You two are gross,” Yoosung complained. “We had to watch you guys be gross the entire time at your stupid party and now we have to watch you being gross here. I don’t want to see this. I want a girlfriend I can cuddle with, too.”

Seven took his coat and shoved it in Yoosung’s arms, “Here, cuddle this,” he teased, “It’s soft.”

“Seven! That’s mean!” Yoosung threw Seven’s coat at him, spilling his beer. _“Man!”_

“You’re practically drunk already anyway.”

“He only has to smell beer to get drunk.”

“We should really take him out more so he can grow some tolerance.”

“Bring him to my place and we’ll get him trashed a few times, he’ll be fine.”

“It would be safer to do it at home.”

“Who has the most comfortable bathroom, though?”

“Jumin, definitely.”

“Why don’t we just get fries and bbq, just order a shitton and everyone can have some,” Viv threw the menu at the table, curling her feet up on the plush seats and leaning into Jumin’s chest. “I’m bored trying to figure out the menu.”

“You never do like to peruse,” Jumin agreed, raising a hand to notify a nearby waiter and order. “I hope the food here is better than the last bar we went to.”

“Bar food is always bad, you’re just not drunk enough to not care, trustfundkid.”

Viv couldn’t help but laugh at that, sputtering through the drink she was trying to take. “You’re talking about someone who hadn’t had bbq until last year, Zen.”

“I know, shit.” His head shook. “I’ve been hanging out with you idiots since I was fifteen.”

“We’re the same age,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, well,” he knocked back another shot of tequila. “Just think of it as a novelty.”

“Has Viv ever cooked for you?” dark eyes cast across the table, a smirk growing on Jumin’s lips. She was going to regret this. “That’s novelty.”

“You can cook?” Zen’s brow shot up into his hairline.

“Not well,” Jumin snickered.

Viv smacked his leg. “You said it was good!” she shrieked.

“Home slice is totally bluffing,” Seven quipped, waving a glass in Jumin’s direction. “Come on, don’t make Vivi upset.”

“I need to try Viv’s cooking, now!” Zen exclaimed, laughing. “You really are lying, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Jumin admitted quickly enough. “It’s fine.”

“Fine!”

Zen and Seven screeched with laughter and Jumin tried to kiss her neck but she dodged him.

“You’re not a sensitive kind of girl, so I never even thought you’d care whether or not someone liked your cooking,” Zen teased. “How cute.”

“How cute, how cute,” Seven echoed. “Zen, you’re trying to get yourself killed?”

“I would refrain if I were you,” Jumin smiled his amusement.

“You’re the one who started this!” Zen thrust a finger in Jumin’s direction, who met said digit with a cool expression of disinterest. Like he’d found a piece of lent on his shirt and briefly thought ‘how’d this get here?’

“I might kill both of you.”

“Women who can say that with a smile are terrifying, and are likely telling the truth,” Seven stated with a nod, as if he knew. It occurred to her that he might.

“Then I should be nicer to my beautiful fiancée,” Jumin tried to kiss her again and she ducked, getting an actual laugh from him this time.

“You two are gross,” Yoosung complained from where he was laying across the seats, holding Seven’s coat. She wondered when he got it back. Wasn’t it wet now?

“Maybe Yoosung should be the one who eats the most,” she noted as the food Jumin had ordered, plus glasses of water and a second bottle of expensive tequila was plopped down on the table.

“Looks like it,” Seven laughed.

“Are you going to have a shot, then, Juju?” she asked, digging into the food. She couldn’t care about the quality of the food when she had enough alcohol and her college days taught her not to care about ‘quality’ so much. Street and junk food was also some of the best tasting. Thankfully there were little plates too, and she pushed one into Jumin’s hands while Seven coaxed Yoosung to eat something.

“Perhaps I will, I hear if you are to do shots, it should be tequila,” he nibbled a bit too politely at the tiny drumstick, making her laugh, but she’d leave him alone.

“You know,” Zen started, leaning back in his seat with his leg folded over the other knee, having already wolfed down several pieces of chicken. “I was really worried about you two, but I’m glad you’ve finally gotten together.”

Besides the fact that Zen tended to get sort of sappy when he’d had a few drinks, that was pretty odd. “What?”

“You heard me,” he huffed, shoving another piece of chicken in his mouth.

“I mean, thanks, but, you know – what changed?”

“You’re telling me Zen disapproved?” Jumin sounded slightly annoyed.

“Not exactly, not of _us_ but of an arranged marriage. He was being a good friend to me.”

Jumin hummed, nodded. “I see. In such case, I appreciate you caring for Viv.”

Seven laughed, and Zen’s mouth dropped open, astounded. “No seriously? You’re not mad?”

“Should I be?”

“Well, no.” He frowned. “I mean, that proposal was so sincere, I can’t be, I don’t know, a piece of shit or something. Then I saw that tabloid and I was just like, damn, cut them some slack, that dude really loves Viv, and _look_ , it’s not like I ever wanted to get in the way, I make jokes but it’s jokes you know that right, Viv? It’s just after all that, I’m rooting for you guys, cause that’s shit, that’s seriously fucking shit man.”

Viv’s smile grew as Zen rambled, his face was already red from the alcohol but it seemed he darkened even more, blushing.

“I found it hilarious. Did you see that picture? How do you get ‘fiancée’ from that? Jumin is _not interested_ ,” Seven swooped in to save Zen’s pride. “I want to know who was there that sold that photo to the media. That was a private event! A dick and a half move right there.”

“It was just, perfect, man,” Zen was still going on about the proposal. She’d lost count of how many shots he’d had. “It was, like, a play. I’m going to have to figure out how to show you up when I propose. Giving up a marriage of convenience in order to choose your best friend!” His glass lifted dramatically, a hand on his heart. “He refuses to be swayed by wealth and splendor! His heart captured by the voice of a siren, or uh, what’s something else that sings that won’t kill you?”

“I don’t sing, though,” Viv protested.

“The muses sing,” Seven waved a drumstick. “And nymphs and water spirits and stuff.”

“Oh! Birds!” Yoosung pointed with his chicken. “You know, those special birds? What are they called? They make people fall asleep and they can make the dead come back to life by singing to them!”

“An angel,” Jumin suggested, quietly, glancing at Viv with that look in his eyes that could melt her heart.

“Yeah, an angel,” Zen agreed, splitting his face with a large grin as he hopped up. Thankfully his glass was empty as it tumbled to the floor. “A story about a man who chooses the love and happiness his friend brings over helping some old pieces of shit make a few extra dollars!” His arms gestured wildly, as if he was on stage. Everyone else laughed, good naturedly, and he grinned at his own silliness, but he was a man of his craft. He wouldn’t leave a story unfinished. “Then a witch comes and tries to steal him away, and it doesn’t work! Nothing can draw his attention away from his angel! So the witch uses her magic powers, or her money, whatever, to transform!”

Zen started walking around, clearly drunk, using a drumstick as a mic, fingers covered in sauce.

“What happens next?!” Yoosung shrieked, almost falling off the seat from leaning forward too far, still clutching Seven’s coat.

“She tricks everyone to think she’s an angel, that’s what,” you could tell he was making it up on the spot. Jumin chuckled softly with a chin on her shoulder, as Viv pressed her hands together, enraptured. “No one can see past all her money and magic, or whatever, and they start trying to make the dude – I guess he must be a prince or something, I mean, Jumin’s like the prince of business, right? They try to make the prince marry _her_ instead, cause they’re like, whoa look at this chick!”

“Fuck that!” Seven chimed in, chasing his shot with his glass of water.

“Right!? The prince doesn’t fall for it, though, because he knows the sound of his friend’s voice, so he tells the fake angel to sing, and when she sounds like shit her disguise melts away to reveal! The! Witch! Then he goes and finds his angel and gives up everything to be with her. But he’s rich so he’s not missing out or anything, he just has to find a new place to work or something, or start his own business. And that’s easy, cause people would be stupid to not hire him.”

Zen pointed a swift finger at Viv and she gasped.

“Then she joined her favorite band ‘Carpe Diem’ and played guitar for them. The end.”

Yoosung and Seven clapped as hard as they could, and Zen took a sweeping bow, which made him stumble forward and fall into Viv and Jumin with a burst of laughter.

Seven was laughing so hard he was having a hard time breathing. “We’re cutting you off, man!”

Meanwhile Zen squeezed Viv and Jumin, and Viv returned the hug. Jumin grunted, Zen’s arm around his neck almost choking him.

“Zen, your hands are still—”

“You’re just so perfect together!”

“God, Zen, who knew you were such an adorable drunk?”

“I’m not drunk!”

They pried him off and he finally cleaned up his hands, laying him down on the velvet seats when he started to complain about the ground moving without him moving.

Seven took a look down at the two down and out friends with a grin, now nursing a water. “Looks like we don’t need that second bottle.”

Jumin hummed in agreement, as there were a few shots worth left in the first one, one of which he partook of. He coughed for a moment and Viv rubbed his leg through it, making him chuckle.

“So,” Viv thought it was as good a time as any to bring it up. “There’s kind of a lot of things happening behind the scenes of that whole tabloid, I think.”

A pair of fingers pulled his glasses down the bridge of his nose, gold eyes looking at her half-seriously, half-teasingly. “Oh really? Do tell.”

“Did you tell him Mr. Han is the one who tried to cancel our engagement?”

“No,” Jumin shrugged. “I didn’t think it was necessary.”

“Of course not.” Viv’s head shook. “Han is doing this for his girlfriend, she wants her ‘student’ to marry Jumin. Thing is, she doesn’t talk about her like a student, she talks about her like a ward. You know, like family.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” his head shook. “What makes you think—”

“I’m a woman, that’s what. I recognize ‘negotiations’ when I hear it. The only people who talk about women like that are family and pimps.”

This look came across his face that seemed like he had more to say, or a lot of questions to ask, but he stopped, gave her the smallest nod to go on.

“She’s got this business she’s trying to sell to Han for a few mill, but it’s bankrupt, has no assets, no physical locations, no inventory, nothing worth investing in. Even the trademark is shit, so it’d be worthless to purchase based on brand recognition alone. So how do you sell a business so far up its ass in unrecoverable debt? Seduce the one man who’s stupid enough to drop millions on girlfriends like it’s water.”

Jumin clicked his tongue at her. Viv shrugged.

“I’m right and you know it.”

He sighed. “I did attempt to talk to my father about the issue and he claimed neither of them would have reason to have the tabloid article published, but Sarah Choi visited me in my office and told me Glam Choi is the one who ordered the publishing of that article out of spite from my proposal. I don’t know what her intentions are, however.”

“I hate to ask you, but—”

“Consider it done,” Seven pushed his glasses back up. “Less than a couple hours work. Take it as an engagement present.”

“I don’t think this is necessary, Viv,” Jumin leaned into her shoulder. “Besides, Seven got out of—”

Seven tsked him. “I’m fine, big man. Why not use my skills for my friends? I owe you.”

“Fuck that,” she spat. “You owe us nothing. You two are our friends, and that’s that.”

“Then let me do this for you, as friends.”

Jumin groaned but didn’t continue.

“I need to get all the evil out of my system,” she laughed, getting up, grabbing a glass and going over to Zen to shake him awake. “Are you ok? Drink some water, bro.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sat up to take the water, drinking the whole glass at once. “Lemme go, Viv, I’ve got to take a piss.”

“At least you’re not so drunk that you can’t get to the bathroom.” She moved out of the way, then sat down next to Yoosung, patting him on head. “You good, pup?”

“God, when are you going to stop calling me that?” he groaned, blinking open his eyes. “I’m the youngest, I got it, geez.”

She grinned, looking at Seven. “When Zen gets back if he’s good we should go dance!”

“I’m down,” Seven chuckled.

Viv looked at Jumin and he shrugged one shoulder. “Yoosung?”

“I’m fine, I’ll come, too, since Seven is going.”

“Whoot! One more.”

Of course when Zen got back he was excited to jump into the crowd. Then he turned to Jumin, a hand brushed Zen’s bangs up for a moment, but they only fell back down to his forehead. “You should come down and dance with us.”

“Sure.”

Both Viv and Zen looked shocked. Seven howled with laughter. Yoosung started fussing about them being mean to Jumin.

“It would be fun to learn a thing or two from Zen and Seven, I think.” Jumin mused aloud as Viv pulled him up from his seat, he was clearly buzzed from that shot. Zen hopped as if he wasn’t just about to puke, or perhaps he was excited to watch Jumin make a fool of himself. Zen pulled Yoosung up, Yoosung dragged Seven by the hand down into the jumping mass of people.

When they got downstairs, they had to squeeze in and create a vacant dancing spot so that all five of them could dance together. Zen set the pace, like usual, but still sort of ‘instructing’ Jumin. Viv and Seven picked up on the dance steps quickly themselves, Seven was as natural a dancer as Zen was when he was let loose in a place where he could be comfortable. Yoosung kept hanging around feeling nervous until Viv took his hands and began dancing ‘with’ him while he stood there blushing. They should have gotten him drunker first, but a song or so later, with his hands on her shoulders, he started to loosen up and rock with her.

“Yeah dude, you got it, just let the music _flow through you_. You’ve got the beat in your body, you just have to _listen to it_ ,” Zen yelled at Jumin over the shaking bass. “I know you do, I’ve seen you play, man, _you’ve got the music in you_.”

Jumin seemed to relax with the reassurance, so used to watching his every move and his public image that doing something like dancing for fun in a club wasn’t even in his vocabulary. Zen dipped lower, letting the steps guide the twist of his knees, the slide of his feet, snapping fingers. A hand carded through Jumin’s hair, leaving one hand to swing to the beat with his foot. Soon they were bobbing to the beat in perfect harmony. Viv turned Yoosung into the middle of their group, let him go, watched him succumb to the vibrations, and joined the pattern of Zen’s dancing. The four of them created a circle that revolved around their youngest, who’d started to bounce and scream the words to the song, deep in the trance of the music, moving together and lost to its incredible energy.

One song bled into another, and then another. Zen grinned too wide, too friendly at Jumin, reached to his hand and pulled him forward, tapped their joined hands to his chest, slapped a hand against Jumin’s back before letting go in celebration of a good song. And Jumin just glittered with happiness at the friendly contact, the masculine affection she knew for sure was never expressed to him before.

Viv thanked all the gods in the universe for this compassionate man.

No one would be able to replace the friendship Jihyun and Jumin had, but the additional friendships couldn’t hurt. Real friendships, not the artificial tolerance they’d kept because of mutual friends. Someone who saw a little more, beyond the façade of the businessman and to the soft interior embroidered in music notes and melodies. No, not a replacement, but special in its own way, different, and necessary. Another support pole to prevent the building from collapsing. With what was going on now, he’d need it. They all did.

They didn’t leave the club until it closed. Viv took the chance to go back stage and hand her business card to the guitarist, told him to call her. When she finally emerged outside, most of the crowd had disappeared, her four friends standing out in the November chill, waiting for her. It was fucking cold.

“I’m driving,” Seven announced, swung his keys around a finger. “Think you can live until we get to the car?”

“Honestly, my feet are worse than the cold,” she wrapped her arms around herself, bumbling over to the group of guys. “Seven, are you going to kill us?”

“What do you mean?” Seven winked at her. Viv rolled her eyes. His driving was terrifying.

Zen kneeled, offered his back, “Climb on.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Jumin grumbled.

“What, are you going to carry her? You polished off that bottle, dude.”

“Didn’t want it to go to waste. That was expensive liquor.”

“You want her to get hurt? She could fall and fuck up an ankle or something in these kill-a-man heels if she’s too tired.”

Jumin sighed, shook his head, maybe with exasperation or answering his question, she wasn’t sure. Zen let her lean against his back and wrap her arms around his neck before he popped her up and grabbed her legs.

“Oh my god don’t swing your feet, you’re going to stab my legs with these heels. Why you got to wear these when we go out? Aren’t you hot enough?”

“Are you swole enough, Zen?”

“Jesus, can’t it be a pair of D.M.s or something, tho?”

“Still dressing like we’re in middle school, I see.”

“Game, set, match,” quipped Seven.

“I could carry her, Viv’s small,” Yoosung told them in a bit of a whine.

“Seven’s practically carrying you, are you kidding me?”

“He’s still got that shot in his system, Zen, leave him alone.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Who is going where?”

“Are you even sober enough to be driving back to your place? You sort of live out in the sticks.”

Seven laughed. “I’m fine, I stopped drinking hours ago.”

“Can I go home with Zen? I don’t wanna go back to school, it’s lonely there.”

Yoosung was frowning and Seven pressed a hand to the top of his head, brought his head to lay on his shoulder. “Sure thing, pup, anywhere you want.”

“I’m not a puppy.”

The rest of them laughed.

“Viv’s place is closer but we don’t want to leave Elly alone too long. You two good with Jumin’s place?”

“It’s Elizabeth the Third.”

“But, the _beast —_ ”

“I’m sure Jumin’s got whiskey dick by now, you don’t need to worry about that, Zen,” Seven cackled.

Jumin cleared his throat. “I could figure something out.”

“ _Come’on_ , man!”

“No one’s coming tonight, dude.”

“Oh my god, Seven, stop!”

“No taking it into your own hands.”

“I’m going to drop you, Viv.”

“You guys are way too loud,” Yoosung murmured.

“Are you taking pictures, Seven? I look like shit!”

“It’s a night to remember!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the longest chapter yet! No song in this either, lol. I had one at first, and couldn't find a good place to fit it in after reorganizing this group of chapters. I want to make sure to pay off everything I set up even with side characters instead of focusing only on Viv & Jumin, at the appropriate time. Things are happening all over the place, and not everything is as they appear!


	7. Superman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which one is encouraged to, prevented from, and seizes happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **{Superman}** is inspired by Tiptoe by Imagine Dragons

 

“I mean, I don’t know anything yet but, I can learn,” Yoosung tried to smile up at his older cousin from the couch he was doing his homework on in the adjacent room to the practice studio.

“Yoosung, you know that I love you like a little brother, right?” Rika leaned her weight on one hip, leaned forward. “I just don’t want you in the band.”

“I just don’t get what you have against Yoosung even learning an instrument, Rika,” Sujin cut in, plopping down on the couch next to Yoosung. “Like, you won’t even be the one teaching him, just let him do what he wants.”

“We don’t always have to do everything together. He’s lucky that I let him come and watch.”

“Are you kidding? This is my home, Rika, you’re lucky I let any of you shits in here.”

“You asked us to be here, what are you talking about?”

“So? I can kick your ass out anytime I want. I could even invite Yoosung without you.”

Rika scoffed. “You wouldn’t, he’s several years younger than us.”

“I don’t get what that has to do with anything. He’s chill.”

With a sigh the blonde pushed her hair out of her face. “We’re arguing about something totally stupid.”

“Yup, a stupid argument that you started. Yoosung asked to learn to play something, you told him no, and you have no right. We could end it right now if you apologize to him and fess up to why you’re being a bitch, Rika.”

Sujin knew the argument wasn’t going to go anywhere soon when Rika got that know-it-all look on her face and crossed her arms over her chest. She rolled her eyes.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” she heard Yoosung say from next to her, shrugging and turning his head back down to his homework. He looked like he was trying really hard to not show his disappointment. “It’s fine, I know how it is.”

“I mean, you’re young! You know?” Rika tried to appease him. “We make music that’s not really appropriate for middle schoolers.”

That made Sujin laugh. “Seriously? My dad taught me how to play the guitar and had me rockin’ out in elementary school.”

“Your father is a bad parent, Sujin.”

Another dangerous cackle bubbled from Sujin’s lips. “Tell me something I don’t know, but you’re not a parent at all, Rika.”

“I pretty much—”

“—oh no you don’t, I’ve meet his parents, they care about him. Don’t you dare. And they’re good to you. Why are you being ungrateful?”

Jihyun came up behind Rika, laying his hands on her shoulders. “What are you two fighting about?”

“Pup wants to learn to play something and Rika told him ‘no’ like she’s his goddamn mother or something, that’s what,” Sujin flicked her irritated gaze up to Jihyun, hoping he’d at least talk some sense into her.

"I'm not a puppy, Su."

“I already told Yoosung I’d teach him the drums when he wanted to start learning. I can’t just renege,” he shrugged, then smiled at the boy sitting next to her. “You wanna come help me set up for the next song?”

Rika looked like she was about to burst into flames, but she said nothing. She wouldn’t, not when Jihyun had a say in things. Yoosung was watching her, and after a long moment shook his head. “No, that’s ok, I probably wouldn’t be any good anyway.”

“How would you even know if you don’t try?” Jihyun’s head tilted to the side, that placid smile remaining there. “Unless you don’t want to learn the drums, I won’t force you.”

“Ah, no, I did, I just –“

“Just go ahead, Yoosung,” Su pushed the younger boy in the shoulder, then shoved his school stuff off his lap. “Go with Jiji, have fun. He’s great, you know.”

“Alright, alright,” he laughed, with one last look at Rika to see if it was ok. Jihyun pressed a kiss to Rika’s forehead and nodded him to follow, that little smile growing. When Rika didn’t say anything, it seemed Yoosung took that as she changed her mind, and let a little more enthusiasm bleed into his step as he followed Jihyun back into the practice room.

Sujin waited until the door closed, then motioned Rika to sit next to her on the couch. “What’s your problem, princess?”

“You only call me princess when I’m acting horrible.”

“Not exactly.”

“Not everyone is like you, Su,” she sighed. “What if he fails? What if he just can’t play the drums? How am I supposed to pick up the pieces?”

“I didn’t know Yoosung was a ceramic plate. That’s just plain stupid, Rika, and you know it.”

“You know the only reason I am the lead singer of this band is because you don’t like to sing, right? You know that your voice is a thousand times better than mine.”

“Is that what this is about?” Sujin held back the urge to laugh. It was a double-edged sword, the way Rika made things about herself. She could be empathetic to a fault and self-centered as fuck. “What does that have to do with Yoosung playing the drums?”

“Because someone is always going to be better than him, and it’ll break his spirit.”

“Or he could just do it because it’s fun, and he likes music, and wants to hang out. You know, the reason we do it. Right? Isn’t that the reason you’re here?”

“I think I’m here because people want me to be here,” Rika sighed. “I’m kinda good at singing, so I’m here.”

Su shrugged. “Then don’t be. If you don’t want to be here, don’t be.”

Rika turned to look at her, mouth open in surprise. There seemed to be a moment of ‘how dare you’ before she thought again, took a breath, reassessed. Then she looked away again, pushed her hair behind her ears, fluffed her curls a bit.

“Is it really that simple?”

“Yup.”

“Could we still be friends?”

“Absolutely.”

It was like she hadn’t thought of it before. Sujin could relate. There were times she didn’t think it was even possible to stop playing music, maybe she would disappear like her cells were made from frequencies, or maybe people would stop caring about her, or maybe her parents would abandon her for another child or something. It was her whole life, basically her blood and bones, it never crossed her mind that she could be doing something else.

Sujin reached out and tugged on a lock of Rika’s hair, getting her attention. “What makes you happy? What makes _Rika_ happy?”

“I…” she took another deep breath. Sujin had a feeling that Rika didn’t know what made her happy, and that was the problem. “You guys do. Being with you.”

“Let’s figure the rest out together, ok? You’re not alone anymore.”

 

 

* * *

  

 

“Shit, Jumin, get off.”

He chuckled, allowing her to get her ringing phone from his bedside table. She looked at the screen, and declined the call, then quickly texted the caller. He ran his fingers down her back, tracing the bumps of her spine. Her phone began ringing again almost immediately, at which he lifted his head to where she was hovering above him and bit into her shoulder, being rewarded with a soft giggling hum of pleasure. Even then, he couldn’t get her to ignore the call, lifting off of him to flop on her stomach next to him.

“Yeah, Dad? What’s up?”

Ah, her father. Jumin stretched his arms over his head, having exerted himself much more than normal the night before. He was still quite tired, though adrenaline thrummed through his veins each time he glimpsed the expanse of her skin, sparking desire through his body. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this, perhaps when hormones were raging hard in high school and college. Just thinking about her rose the worst of him to the surface, selfish and demanding in ways that were simply unacceptable.

Rolling to his side, the sunlight streaming through open windows, Jumin took his time to look over her skin, draw fingertips down her spine. The lotus flower was intricate in ways he couldn’t see in the mere light of a lamp, the way the black of the ink was slightly violet in her skin, tiny jewels with hints of color, blue, indigo, green. The smallest of lines created patterns so precise it was astounding that a human’s hand had made them, thicker lines curling around and over the contours of her spine, the muscles of her back, to create the petals, each one lovingly crafted with intent. He wondered what her father’s tattoo looked like, how hers mimicked, elaborated on it, wondered why she’d chosen to turn the flower upside down other than the way it sat tucked under her shoulder blades, wondered where Saeran’s signature lived, what part of it was his, or if he’s left himself absent from it to respect the bond of father and daughter, as he’d done with their feather and wing.

“Well, that’s simply not true,” she laughed, but it was a strange sound, a worried one. His attention lifted, forcibly tuned into the conversation. “It’s just another thing taken purposely out of context.”

She paused, listened, sighed.

“I know you’re worried, but there’s nothing going on with me and Zen, ok?”

“Su,” he interrupted, “What’s going on?”

She turned over, looking up at him. “You remember we went to that club? Some tabloid published a photo of Zen giving me a piggy back ride and it’s accusing me of cheating on you.”

“Interesting. According to the media, we’re not even together,” he hummed, unbothered. She seemed relaxed, but her father sounded frantic on the phone. It seemed he took a lot more stock in the opinion of the public than Jumin allowed himself energy for.

“That’s right,” she laughed. “Not too long ago the media claimed Sarah was Jumin’s fiancée not me, so it doesn’t make sense that they’d proclaim I’m cheating on someone I’m not in a relationship with. What kind of idiocy is this?”

“Creating a ‘magnificent feast’ for petty cash, of course.”

She looked at him like he’d grown a second head, and then burst into laughter.

“No, no, Dad, sorry, that's, I— Jumin is just being silly. No, actually that picture had to be doctored or something, because Jumin was walking right next to Zen. See, what had happened was... there was a band I was scouting, and they’ve got this slick guitarist, he dresses like Mick Jagger in the good ol’ days, oh yes, androgynous and made animal print look like it could be a _thing_ again and everything— oh, I’m excited, he called me yesterday and I’ve got a meeting with him next week— I dragged the boys with me cause I don’t go clubbing alone, I’m not an idiot. Anyway, Jumin had too much tequila, and I was wearing stilettos, and— yeah! That’s exactly what happened.”

Viv turned on her side, rummaging through his bedside table to pull out a note pad and pen, ripping out a piece of paper and beginning to write something down. The movement revealed the almost-never seen tattoo, delicate brown lines framing blotches of pink, purple, and blue to create watercolor-like flowers. The first time she’d shown it to him, he hadn’t bothered to get the full story of this particular tattoo. Thinking of that night now brought slight embarrassment along with its fond memories, as he knew he'd have her in bed that night the moment he saw her lounging on his couch in his night shirt. By the time she'd gotten to showing it to him, he couldn't care less about why she'd put it there.

But, in fact, he didn’t need an explanation. Lines that looked fluid and intricate were revealed to be stylized English calligraphy, hard to read but he could make it out with the help of the morning light. Every line and shape purposeful, each one a letter, a word, a puzzle. Letters connected into words, but the words weren’t in order, it seemed, blotches of blues in layers, indistinct birds blurred along edges of petals. He attempted to untangle the riddle until lyrics formed in his mind of a long-forgotten song.

“Huh.”

“What?”

She turned to look at him but he stopped her, still looking at the tattoo, not sure if he was actually seeing what he thought he was.  

“So you’re saying that this has to be someone trying to set us up? I mean, yeah, that’s obvious, I’m just confused as to why we should care. Tabloids make up stuff all the time just to have a story. Some people are stupid enough to believe it, most people aren’t, you know, we never acknowledge that kind of stuff. It looks worse on us than it does on them to have to do a press release or something. I bet the guys have already done something to combat the rumors a bit, anyway, Zen has a pretty loyal fanbase. Seven’s a— oh! Jumin, stop!”

She paused to push away the hand he brushed down her side, making him pull back somewhat. He must be tickling her. He drew the blankets away to run his eyes across her skin, finding a small scar here and there, many of them he remembered the origins of himself. That time she was learning how to ride a bike and fell. The time she’d tried to curl her hair herself and dropped the curling iron on her foot. That time she was helping Jihyun modify a drum and cut her hand. That time she’d been stung by a bee and scratching turned a tiny hole into a decent sized scar.

Viv tugged the blanket back up with a shiver, rolling her eyes at him.

Instead his attention turned to purpling marks along her shoulders. He knew himself, the pleasure he had to tamp down when he skimmed fingers over bruises he’d given her the night before. He wondered if he would be trying to keep that possessiveness in check for the rest of his life now that he had her, or if it would mellow out.

“Honestly, Dad, things with us are fine. You don’t have to worry so much.”

“More than fine,” he confirmed, earning a brief, chaste kiss on the lips.

“You hear that, Daddy? Try not to let those tabloids work you up like this. The stress is bad for you. Do you need anything? I can move things around, if need be.”

She paused, listening, putting aside the pen and paper, returning to him, beckoning him.

“Lunch? Well, sure, if you want, text me a place once you find something you want to eat, or I can find something you’d like,” she looked at the clock and he followed her gaze. They should be getting ready for work, honestly, but he wanted to keep her here, would love to take a day off just to keep her in bed with him. “Juju? Do you think you can make time for lunch with dad today?”

“Of course. Anything for my father-in-law.”

The way her expression changed showed that her father must have liked his response, a soft little smile that made his stomach flutter each time he saw it.

“Alright, Daddy.”

Finally, she hung up. He shifted above her to grab her phone out of her hand and drop it to the floor over the side of the bed before it could distract her again, laid his weight down to her enough to make sure she couldn’t get up.

“It’s a song, isn’t it?”

“What’s a so— oh, you mean that tattoo? Is that what you were looking at? I thought I told you…”

A blush spread over her face, warmth spread over his heart, something he never knew would be, could be, special to him until this very moment. It was something they did for her when she was very small, when they didn’t know what was happening to her, when they only had each other. He’d forgotten about it, but she hadn’t, it was etched into her skin so that she wouldn’t, marked by it because she couldn’t. It made sense as to why it was in a place that was so private, why there were three delicate flowers, why one blue was slightly green, the other almost-violet, colors blurred like a memory.

“You are so…”

But he didn’t know what he was trying to say, not really. There weren’t words for this feeling, and so instead he pressed his lips to hers, curled around her, rolled them over so that it was facing the light as she sat up. She twisted, attempting to look at it. His fingers brushed over curling words of flower petals, ‘ _somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly’_. Then she leaned back over him, he couldn’t help but smile through her laughter heating his lips. Her legs spread to the sides of his hips, her hair cascaded over their shoulders as she enveloped him, engulfed him, pushed him under an ocean of affection that he breathed into his lungs with all the intent of sinking himself to the bottom.

Jumin had never been so _happy_.

They had to drag themselves out of bed, they were going to be late, he needed to shave, did he have a suit pressed? Did she need to grab an outfit from her place? Didn’t he have a meeting first thing? Assistant Kang would be livid.

“I love you, Jumin,” he could hear her smile in the words, and decided they’d get up soon.

Soon, but not yet.

 

 

***

 

 

_{Superman}_

_Buildings crumble around me,_  
_throw a punch, swing a kick_  
_Take a chance for me to save you,_  
_jump from the highest light and I’ll catch you._  
_Gamble on the beats of your heart,_  
_double the time and repeat the place._  
_I will be your superman, babe -_  
_so just call my name (scream my name)._  
_Bad guys will risk it all to steal your love,_  
_trust me if I need to beat the villain I’ll –_

 _Fly at the speed of light,_  
_run faster than the speed of sound._  
_I won’t let you face danger alone._  
_Superman is here to be your savior;_  
_I’m willing to pay the price._

 _What do you mean you didn’t need help?_  
_I just happened to be – (over there, helping that granny across the street)_  
_Naw it was just a coincidence (there was just a robbery and-)_  
_But now that we’re both here… I just want to remind you_

 _Brick shatters when I look at it too hard,_  
_right – left – right – left (swish!)_  
_Lex Luther has nothing on me, babe_  
_so just whisper my name (say my name)._  
_Perilous heights, perilous sights won’t deter me,_  
_hit the ground running and I’ll be your shield._  
_Bet money on the heartbeats it takes to find you (jagi, I got you)_  
_half the time and abandon the place._  
_Kryptonite won’t keep me from you,_  
_trust me if I need to become the villain I’ll-_

 _Fly at the speed of light,_  
_run faster than the speed of sound._  
_I won’t let you face danger alone._  
_Superman is here to be your savior;_  
_I’m willing to pay the price._

_Trust me if I need to I’ll –_

_Fly at the speed of - (light)_  
_run faster than – (come on, you know)_  
_I won’t let you take risks alone (but together maybe we can)_  
_Superman is here to be your savior (your protector, your everything);_  
_I’m willing to pay the price._

 _Let’s make a bet._  
_How many heartbeats until you fall -_  
_(One? Two? Three?)_

 

“Alright, Seven, you’ve got topline.”

“Chaaa- really?”

“Definitely. Written for your timbre,” Viv winked at him, adjusting different settings on the circular keyboard. She looked around the practice room, eyes landing on a blonde head poking out from behind the drumkit. “Hey, Yoosung, how are you doing?”

“A bit better now that I don’t have school looming over my shoulders for the time being. Thanks, Viv.”

“Think you’re good, today?”

“Yeah. I’ve got an appointment at four, though.”

“Gotcha. So let’s do this the good ol’ fashioned way, right, boys?”

“Oh, shit, a jam session!” Zen whooped, whipping out his phone to start recording. “I can’t wait to hear what this sounds like. I’m excited to start putting together new music.”

“I’m surprised the first song Viv writes for the new album is with me leading,” Seven laughed, nervously.

“Technically it’s the second, we just haven’t touched the first one for like, a month since everything went to shit. We’ll go back to that but we need to prepare for the end of the month. You’re going to do fine, Seven. Don’t worry about it.” Viv looked at the red-headed bassist, pulling her hair up into a ponytail. “I got your back.”

He leaned against the wall, a bit of a smile on his face. Viv pulled up a beat that sounded somewhat similar to what she was looking for, emulating something focused on high-hats and snare, light but still grounding for the song. She began to play the keyboard, singing the bouncy, spongey melody. It was sticky and held on to notes for a fraction too long in some places, adding to the speed of some lines and the danger of others, though its chords kept the song bright and hopeful. She’d used the same key as the romantic theme from the original Superman movie, a bit of nostalgia at the edges, with a few chord progressions that sounded out of place to make it feel a bit gnarly. It wasn’t supposed to be completely clean and clear, there was a bit of cynicism at the border, a sense of awareness of how unrealistic it was in a lot of ways.

A promise to take care of the person’s heart who takes the risk to love you.

“I kind of love it,” Seven laughed, “of course a song like this is perfect for God Seven.”

“I thought it was up your alley,” she grinned. “Maybe we can listen to it a couple times and then put together whatever we’ve come up with?”

“Yeah, sounds fun! I want to look up the sound of someone running, I bet following a pattern like that for some of the drumming would really make it feel like you’re moving,” Yoosung chipped in, hovering behind them, having emerged from his place at the drumkit.

After about an hour of playing around, listening, and discussing, they grabbed their instruments. Viv picked up lead guitar because she just wasn’t going to write without it, she’d find someone later and put Zen on keyboard. Yoosung tried out new rhythms each time they played through it, bringing her something different each time she asked for it, until they had something bright, that escalated, changed slightly with every section of the song. In order to not wear him out, the beat deescalated at each bridge, picked up for the chorus, Seven layered a secondary rhythm halfway through the chorus, and Zen or Viv would stack another rhythmic variation on top with the next verse.

They worked through everyone’s parts of the song and vocal harmonies for a while before Seven took a recording for everyone to listen to later, after they hadn’t heard the song for a while and could assess it with fresh ears later. They ran through a few other songs for practice, just to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything, and since they had a bit of time left, they revisited ‘Red’ with the new lead guitar and keyboard part. It sounded way better, and satisfied, they took a rough recording on their phones of that one to be revisited on post.

Yoosung had to leave for his appointment, after which Seven and Zen joined her for a cup of coffee at the attached café -sort of cafeteria- for the studio. It was still open to the public, but C&R and AM employees got a discount plus there were private rooms in the back for business lunches or privacy for artists who didn’t want to get accosted. She could grab one of the open business rooms if she wanted, but it didn’t seem necessary for just three people, plus she wasn’t so sure she wanted to run into any senior officers while she was dressed in a long sweatshirt and leggings.

“For the most part, it’s seemed like I was able to appease my crew,” Zen said over the straw of a protein drink. “Seven posted those pics he took of us walking back to his car as a group as proof that everyone including your man was there, plus an entirely unnecessary pic of me having fallen asleep on Jumin’s shoulder in the back of his car.”

“Unnecessary? Seems like it worked, Zenny,” Seven teasingly laughed, who was sharing a hot pot of coffee with her. “Half the comments are shipping you two, the other half are talking about how good friends you two must be. Win-win.”

“Win-win?!”

“They would be a smokin’ hot couple, wouldn’t they?” Viv quipped.

“Right?! That’s what I say,” Seven snickered.

“Both of you are nasty as hell,” Zen basically pouted.

“Ok, Seven, we should chill. They’ve just become real friends. Can’t make that weird for Zen.”

“We are _not_ friends,” Zen snapped.

“Then what are you two?” Seven wiggled his brows, ducked more swiftly than a normal person when Zen swung at him, still holding in his amusement the best he could.

“That’s Viv’s man, dude, stop!”

“I’m willing to share as long as I get to watch.”

“Ayyy!” Seven rose a hand to high-five her across the table.

Viv laughed, enjoying their banter. Fortunately they seemed pretty unfazed by the whole thing, and sipped at her coffee with a bit of peace. She looked out the window, scanning the titles of the tabloids that were at the end of the stand on the corner. Seeing the covers up close, it looked like someone had cropped and blown up a cell-phone photo, super pixelated and blurry. That was pretty fortunate for her since the tabloid wasn’t commenting on her back tattoo at all, it had gotten lost in the pixelated crisscross of fabric of her ripped t-shirt.

“You know what though? Most everyone wants to know who Viv is, you know, if she’s not my girl or something,” Zen drew her attention back to him, her head tilted. “So I might have used the video I took of Viv for the new song, you know, where she sang it for us solo with the keyboard a few hours ago? And posted it to my socials.”

“You did what now?” she lifted her brows practically to her hairline, apprehension climbing up her throat. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

“I mean, they want to know who you are. I couldn’t think of a better way to introduce you, so I let your music do it for you. And, you know, your voice.”

“You didn’t need to introduce me, Zen. I’m nobody.”

He shrugged. “I mean, I sort of did. Like, all the big groups’ fans know of their manager and some of their most important staff, you know, the people they’re out with all the time? Some producers, some writers, other artists, stylists and stuff. Besides, seeing us out together won’t be such a big deal if our groupies know who you are.”

“I hope you’re right, Zen,” she conceded, more for the sake of her stress levels than actually believing it would be helpful. Hopefully everyone would forget about it when Zen posted another selfie and there wouldn’t be an issue.

Seven slid his phone across the table and he cackled that stupid laugh that he had when something was horribly wrong. Viv steeled herself with a deep breath, then she looked down at the phone. No way. “My eyesight must be shit today.”

“No, Vivi, that’s six figures of likes and like, a thousand comments.”

“I mean, this is just because you’re insanely popular on social media, Zen, cause you’re, like, literally perfect. This means absolutely nothing about me other than now your fans know who I am. You could post an egg and get fifty-million likes. Whoop-de-doo.”

“Well, that’s true, but I don’t often get this many comments, and honestly, if I post girls with me I get around 100k for a celeb collab and if it’s just a chick it’s like, 30k. It really drops off like crazy usually. It’s been a couple hours and it’s already double that. This is a thing, Viv.” 

“You’ve been determined for years to deny the fact that you have an incredible voice, Viv,” Seven teased. “You haven’t liked singing since… yikes, it’s been since we met. When was that? Seventh grade?”

“Look, all these people are clamoring to hear more from you. I’ve been reading through the comments, they’re asking about you, they want to know you and hear your voice, Viv. Not just the music you write for other people, but your voice singing your music.”

“First off, no. Second, is that why you’ve been on your phone for like, the entire past two hours? You lazy shit.”

Zen crossed his arms, leaned back in his seat, looking at her as if she was a stubborn child. “Seriously, Viv, what in the world is holding you back? Anyone else would be jumping on this. You’ve got everything you’d ever need to be successful. If you wanted to get signed, you could walk into your job and sign a contract right now and everyone there would just go ‘damn, about time.’ You can’t spend your whole life running away from the one thing that is uniquely yours.”

Viv looked out the window, seeing nothing, concentrating on breathing. It happened once in a while. Someone would confront her about her singing voice after working with her for a while, she’d have to endure it, and then they would move on when she refused to take action on their advice.

Seven reached over and refilled her cup, looked her in the eye from behind his glasses, at the threshold of teasing, smirking lips but gold eyes that looked straight in. “This is about how RFA broke up, isn’t it?”

Her head shook. It wasn’t, but it had solidified it, final nail in the coffin so to speak. She might have tried, but there was no possibility, not after that.

“That wasn’t your fault,” he almost whispered, eye contact cutting deep. Her heartbeat doubled, she felt sick. “Su, that wasn’t your fault.”

She hated when people just pulled out her given name whenever they wanted to, when her friends used the nicknames they’d called her as a child, hit her beneath the armor she put up. She hated they knew to do it, hated that it affected her so much, hated that it was a weapon to be used against her. 

“I’ve hated singing since I was, like, born, Seven, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, but, _why_ , when you clearly love everything music. When your voice is like magic? Why is it this one thing?”

“Because the day I finally sing will be the day my dad gives up.”

It was stupid, she knew. She’d regret it, she knew that, too. That’s why it came out as a whisper, and they weren’t supposed to hear it, she hadn’t meant to say it, but there it was, fear and all.

“Viv?” Zen had reached across the table to cup her chin in a large hand, then carefully, lightly, pressed a napkin to her face. Had she been crying? “I’m sorry, Viv.”

She laughed, took the napkin, brushed off his hand and worried expression, dabbed at her face in haste and embarrassment.

“Don’t worry about it. It all just comes down to me being a really fucking selfish person.”

 

 

***

 

 

It if bothered her that they were dancing in the middle of the restaurant to the small band playing for entertainment, alone, garnering copious amounts of attention and strange stares, she didn’t let on. There was room, in fact, it was the intention of this space even though the majority of the establishment’s patrons were too pretentious to allow themselves the pleasure of holding someone in their arms and feeling music trickle through their veins. Perhaps he was one of those people a few months ago who wouldn’t allow himself this because of high society. On the other hand, he knew he would have danced with her if she’d asked six years or six months ago. It was more that this time, he’d asked her.

Her head tilted back, the smile of lips stained deep burgundy that he had the worst urge to smear. Instead he pressed a small kiss to her nose as her arms wrapped around his neck, and he leaned his forehead to hers.

“People are taking pictures of us,” she whispered.

“Ideally they are nice ones,” he scoffed, tangling his fingers at the ends of her hair as it brushed over his hands with each movement. “Sell them to a tabloid, make some people upset, et cetera. You look especially good tonight. I want to show you off.”

 “Oh?” the flash of that wicked smile spread her lips, and he could swear her eyes sparkled. He wondered briefly if she knew she looked mischievous. “Are you saying that because of Glam and Sarah?”

“Of course not. Regardless, neither of them should care whether or not I spend time with you away from them. You are my future wife, after all.”

“You’re terrible,” she giggled, a girlishly bright sound that he seemed to be hearing more frequently lately. It was so unlike her, and yet it belonged to her, perhaps only to the two of them. It was laced at the edges with poison, one that tainted him and his intentions. If only they weren’t obligated to stay because of his father.

“So mean,” he smiled.

“We should get back before your father has a heart attack.”

“We’re literally across the room, he should be fine.”

“Jumin,” she scolded with a light slap on his arm.

“They’re his guests, and you’re mine. I’m doing my part.”

“He looks really upset.”

“That's fine.”

“Jumin!” she fussed, laughter at the edge of the sound.

A soft hum against her skin, he reduced his voice to an almost-whispered rumble, his lips right next to her ear. “That’s right, say my name just like that.”

“Don’t be a tease,” his efforts earned him a second scolding tap on his bicep. His lips spread into a grin against her skin.

“I told you, I want to show you off.”

“I know if I told you not to you’d do it anyway, wouldn’t you?”

“It is beyond my control.”

“Asshole.”

He laughed, deep and resonant, until he ran out of breath to do so. She had brought her gaze up to his, that little smirk on her lips, in her eyes that seemed to force him to kiss her even though he was attempting to restrain himself. Viv seemed to make sure that he wasn’t able to push too far, moving back slightly even as he leaned in more, that small movement of dodging his affections so familiar to him now that it prolonged his amusement.

“Now you’re just intent on embarrassing me.”

Jumin took her right hand and pulled it away from his neck, turned her hand with his and kissed the tattoo adorning the wrist of it. “I am intent on establishing that you’re mine, Viv.”

She seemed to concede, and he felt her drop her cheek to his chest, allowing him to hold her closer. “As much as the whole thing is a mess, I don’t want your dad to resent me. At the end of this whole drama I want us to be able to be a happy family anyway.”

He wasn’t sure if that would be possible with Glam in the picture obviously whispering things against Viv in his ear, but it was as good of a reason as ever to stop being petty and return to the table. Even with Glam being the one to tell his father to leave the issue alone, he didn’t trust that she wasn’t whittling away at his opinion of Viv each day a bit at a time. If there was something they could do to prevent discord within the family then he should do it even if it was against his self-interests. Jumin didn’t think showing his father he was happy with his lover would do much to fix the issue when his father was so intent to ignore the source of the problem.

With a sigh, his head shook slightly and he pulled her away, pressed a small kiss to her temple. “Alright, my love, let us attempt to have a good time with my father and his guests.”

“I don’t want to be here either,” she agreed. “But we'll get through it.”

The pair made their way rather slowly across the room, though it was more or less because they were stopped by several people who knew either of them to say something, most of them simply congratulating them on their engagement, a popular reporter from a variety show asking to arrange an interview with the pair, and a few businessmen they hadn’t expected to see. Once they made it back to the table, he pulled out her chair for her, which was to his left, gave a small bow to his father before sitting himself.

“The appetizers have already come and gone,” Glam Choi said with an air of annoyance, though she seemed to try to mask it to be apologetic.

Jumin only shrugged slightly in response, not really caring. They could order extra food if they were still hungry after the entrée.

“That’s ok,” Viv quipped from beside him, that professional guard automatically raising, that disarmingly sweet vocal tone she took when dealing with difficult people who clearly didn’t like her for some reason or another. “We can make up for it with dessert!”

He chuckled, threaded their fingers together, rose her hand to his mouth to kiss it. “Whatever you’d like, my love.”

“I bet you could send for something if you wanted an appetizer.”

“I could, but I think I’m in the mood for steak tonight.”

She nodded, leaning into him when he released her hand and used that arm to drape over the back of her chair, handing her the menu to scan over it. “Have you been here before?”

“I have.”

“Recommendations?”

“For you? Hm…”

“Perhaps something lower in fat would be a good idea,” Glam suggested, “like a salad.”

“It’s so kind of you to be concerned over Sujin’s health, Glam,” his father crooned. “And here I thought you didn’t like her.”

“She’s not,” Viv glanced up at his father, a pleasant smile on her lips, voice as mild as could be. “She’s politely saying I’m fat.”

“I am merely trying to help you, Sujin,” Glam took on an equally fake ‘nice’ voice. “Considering the scandal you’re in, you must make sure you’re marriage material.”

Jumin thought he made it clear that Viv’s appearance wasn’t the reason he loved Viv the way he did. He had to push down the urge to defend her, knowing that it would look like she had every reason to criticize their relationship if he was defensive. It wouldn’t matter since nothing he said would be heard. The best thing to do would be to refuse to engage.

“I had the salt-crusted wild sea bass the last time I was here. I think you would enjoy it.”

“Oh, thank you, Juju. Fish sounds like a good idea.”

“What kind of scandal is that?” his father finally asked. He knew that he would, even though he didn’t seem bothered in the least by the fact that he was still married and dating other women, and he was often in the news for it.

“Sujin was accused of cheating on your son, love,” Glam stated almost venomously. “Seen with another man, and such.”

“Did you know about this, Jumin?”

“Of course I did,” Jumin scoffed. Viv leaned into his shoulder with more of her weight, a movement that was small but comforting. “The issue has already been resolved.”

“What ended up happening?” His father’s gaze switched to Viv, and Jumin recognized how judgmental it was.

“The picture was doctored to create a misunderstanding,” he tried to call the attention back to himself. “It was five of us, including myself, present when it was taken. Our friends posted better photos all over their social media and the rumors were quelled once the public realized she couldn’t be cheating if I was with them.”

“You know the group I was scouting? I got a call back from their guitarist. He’s got a contract, though, I want to see if I can find a loophole to attempt to break it. He’s going to send me a copy of it, would you mind taking a look at it?” Viv used the topic of that night to transition into something else entirely, thankfully.

“Absolutely. One of the three acquisitions for the year?”

“Yeah, hopefully. I might be trying to snipe them from another company,” she laughed and blushed. “I know, I know, bad Viv! I admit that we might have to pay off their contract, but Dad’s going to come to a show with me and see if they’re worth it. I have a couple of plans for them, we’ll see what works out.”

“Oh?” Jumin’s business brain clicked on, automatically interested in discussing the venture more than this scandal nonsense. “And what are those?”

“We’ve been talking about finding a group to market in America, I think they could be the right fit. It’s also possible I want to try to transplant their guitarist to Carpe Diem. Plus, Sae and Van already know each other pretty well.”

“You have been talking about adding a second guitarist. But I’m sure the guys are hoping you’d step in.”

She sighed. “I know, Zen bugs me about it every chance he gets.”

“It’s possible that he’s correct.”

“Not you, too.”

“This is so rude,” Glam heaved a sigh, a hand waving to dismiss their conversation. “We were speaking about something else completely, much more important than whatever new business venture you two should be planning at work. We’re at dinner.”

The relaxed expression on Jumin’s face disappeared with Glam’s inane interruption, and he looked at his father briefly for his reaction before he turned his attention down to Viv’s shocked face. She was more important, and his father seemed to be determined to side with Glam no matter the circumstances.

“Our explanation of the situation should be adequate. It is not rude to move on to a new subject when the old one has been properly discussed,” he noted.

“Changing the subject so quickly is a sign of attempting to cover up something you don’t want to talk about,” she countered.

He sighed. This is exactly what he didn’t want to go through anymore. Each time he had to encounter this woman the issues escalated, the attempt to exaggerate ‘problems’ into something it wasn’t became more desperate. Wasn’t it clear to his father that she had a problem and it wasn’t them?

“It seems you could be covering for something, nowhere on your social media do you have pictures together with Jumin,” Glam accused, having dropped the fake ‘sweet’ voice for something much more antagonistic, aiming the question at Vivere. “What woman doesn’t like showing off her relationship? Doesn’t that mean you’re ashamed of Jumin?”

“Am I hearing this right? I don’t love my fiancée because I don’t plaster images of us all over the internet?” Viv’s head shook.

“The low that someone will go to attempt to prove something that doesn’t exist,” Jumin nodded.

Viv took a deep breath. “I don’t understand why you’re attacking me like this.”

“I don’t believe the two of you are in a real relationship,” Glam stated, sitting up straighter and leveling a stern look at Vivere. He wondered why she was after Viv of all people if that was the case, but maybe she saw Viv as an easier target. “All of this is an act so that you can get what you want.”

“And what could that possibly be?”

“To disobey your parents, obviously. Jumin doesn’t want to marry Sarah and instead of being a man and saying it to her face, he’s pretending to be in love with you and humiliating us in the process!”

“My father still thinks the arrangement is valid, as Mr. Han hasn’t approached him about breaking it, just… for your information…”

“He did say so to my face, Glam, multiple times,” Sarah pointed out.

“Humiliating who?” he asked. That was a far reach.

“Myself and your father,” she practically scowled.

“You’re not my mother,” Jumin stated placidly.

“Glam, please calm down,” his father squeezed her hand. “No one is being humiliated, Jumin simply does not want to marry Sarah.”

“Well, this argument is certainly humiliating enough,” Viv commentated, almost-whispering to no one in particular. “The wait staff is avoiding this table because she’s angry.”

“Father, I thought you said this was over and Ms. Choi was no longer interested in pushing the matter.”

“I am not sure how that’s relevant to the conversation,” Glam interrupted.

“It would mean that your vested interest in my relationship should have been nullified upon removing the stakes.”

“I would love to order,” Viv mumbled. “I’m hungry.”

“As the son of someone I care for, I think it is very much my business whether or not this is a real relationship.”

“You are practically a stranger to me. I’m not sure why I should hold your opinion in higher regard than any other person I don’t know,” came his still placid reply.

“Jumin, don’t be so rude, Glam is worried for your happiness,” came his father’s half-hearted scolding.

“Considering that I am happy in my current relationship, what use is it to force this subject further? What would be the solution to the problem you’ve perceived?”

“Marrying Sarah instead, of course.”

Glam’s head tilted up and her eyes seemed to look down on Viv. Jumin had to take a moment to catch his temper, reel it back so that he wouldn’t immediately strangle the woman. It took bringing things back to a colder, numb place, but for the sake of the relationship with his father he would keep his cool.

“Glam, you said we should back off from pushing Jumin. Besides, did you not say Sarah isn’t interested?” Thankfully, his father seemed to come up with the ability to say something against her, despite the way he tried to keep his demeanor non-confrontational. It was all he could hope for, really, in the current situation.

“I only said that because she threatened you!” Glam seethed. He glanced down at Viv, wondering not for the first time what she’d said to his father, but that was likely an exaggeration.

“She didn’t _threaten_ me, she only said something that I… might have needed to hear,” Han admitted. It seemed Viv was more surprised than he felt, since he watched her brows raise to her hairline.

“I don’t want to marry Jumin,” Sarah interjected. He’d forgotten that she was even there.

“You don’t have a say in the matter,” Glam snapped at her.

“Whoa,” Viv breathed next to him.

Jumin wrapped his arm tighter around her shoulder, opting out of the conversation to take her hand and lift it to his lips. She nuzzled into his side, turned to kiss his cheek, then used a thumb to scrub away the red lipstick that marked her affection. Why did he even think it was possible to be able to have a mutual ceasefire for the sake of the potential family they would create if his father actually ended up marrying this woman? What kind of grandmother would she make when they started having children? Would she try to sell off their children the way she was doing to Sarah and himself? And what exactly was her relationship with Sarah? This wasn’t something a mere teacher could do to their student, for sure, Viv was right about that. Questions he asked before and felt he needed to ask himself again.

Should he be worried, instead of for himself or his relationship, for his father’s well-being?

“I’m sorry, Viv.”

“Juju, please—” she pat his arm lightly, her head shook. “Don’t.”

“It has been a difficult evening.”

“Yeah, we knew that was going to happen already. You’re fine. These things take time.”

“Time,” he echoed. “Of course.”

 “Alright, but, like, I’m hungry, so can we order?”

He chuckled, kissed her softly, then called over the waiter so that they could order. He added two stiff drinks, they would need it to survive the rest of the dinner.

 

 

***

 

 

“Is Jumin in today?”

The middle-aged brown hair woman hovered much too close to Jaehee’s desk, who had to take a conscious effort to not physically move back. With her was a woman with pink-purple hair that stared her down with a sense of hostility. Jaehee had met her before, she’d had a meeting with Mr. Han the other week about a business deal, but this woman she hadn’t met before so she wasn’t sure why they were approaching her in this way. Then again, people didn’t often need a reason to behave in the manner they did.

“No, ma’am, he is in meetings all day. May I make an appointment for you to see him?” Jaehee adjusted her glasses, fingers immediately ticking away on her computer to pull up his schedule.

“Miss, ah, Jaehee,” she picked up and turned the nameplate on the desk, then dropped it as if he wasn’t worth her time. “I am actually here to speak to you.”

Jaehee opened her mouth, said nothing, then closed it instead, nodding, prompting her to continue. She had a pen and paper nearby in order to take notes.

“I take it that you’re a fan of Carpe Diem – no – Zen, are you not? I am, too, his musicals were wonderful. Such a shame he’s decided to continue to go more in the vein of mainstream music, such a waste of his talent.” The woman put her elbow on her desk and dropped her chin into her hand, half-lidded eyes looking relaxed and deliberately overly friendly.

“I – yes, I quite enjoy Zen’s work.”

If she’s such a big fan of Zen’s, wouldn’t she know he is starring in a musical next summer? He had been posting about it fairly often on his socials. He hadn’t abandoned the theatre, just expanded his reach. Jaehee was proud of his accomplishments, but she supposed everyone had their own taste. The real question was why she presumed she was a fan of Carpe Diem, and in particular Zen. It was odd to say the least.

“But he’s also your friend, is he not? I know he is a companion of Jumin.”

Why did this woman kept referring to Mr. Han as if she knew her boss personally?

“I can’t say I am close to him,” Jaehee lied. Thankfully with years of being Mr. Han’s assistant, lying was pretty easy for her, not that it was a skill she was proud to have cultivated. “I don’t exactly associate with my boss and his friends outside of work hours.”

“I guess you wouldn’t— too average,” the magenta-haired woman smirked. “Jumin would have much better taste.”

Jaehee held back a sigh, schooled herself with a blank face that intentionally ignored the comment aimed at getting something out of her.

“That’s a shame, since as a fan myself, I was hoping to see if there was something that Jumin could do to make sure Zen’s reputation isn’t further tarnished.” The middle-aged woman continued, having also ignored her companion.

“You mean the latest tabloid? I doubt it will affect him much. Most people are reasonable, I would hope.”

It was more that Jaehee knew better than most people the way Zen’s fans were reacting to the tabloid. Even though the issue had been rectified, many fans were weary of Vivere. Having met her on a number of occasions, she was sure that she wouldn’t be the kind of person to cheat and knowing Zen he wouldn’t knowingly intrude on someone else’s relationship. The public didn’t have personal contact with either of them, and so they just speculated.

“You mean like the fans who attack the female friends of actors, or fans who break into the homes of idols and plant cameras, or fans who hurt themselves when their favorite person gets in a relationship?”

She had a point there.

“Mr. Han and Miss Park are very devoted to each other, so that is an unnecessary worry. Besides, Vivere is Carpe Diem’s manager, it’s normal for them to be together,” Jaehee carefully parroted the words that she’d been saying to people all week in order to placate rumors around the office.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” the woman shrugged. “Men are fickle. He’s sure to change his mind when the tabloids keep publishing things about his fiancée that cast a bad light on his reputation. It’s only a matter of time. Too risky for business.”

Mr. Han, however, wasn’t that kind of man. Jaehee knew that for a fact. He was hopelessly in love with his fiancée, and Jaehee would dare to say he had been since before she’d been hired. He’d always had a soft spot for Vivere, everyone saw it. Zen said they’d been like that ever since he’d first met them, over ten years ago. When their marriage was announced, the messenger blew up with a collective ‘about time.’

“Don’t you think it’s odd that they look so happy? That Vivere looks much happier with Zen than she did with Jumin in that video. But maybe that’s me being a jealous Zen fan. Anyway, I want to support Zen the best that I can, and I have some connections in the media… maybe you’d help me? You know, make sure he’s not tied up in their relationship falling apart.”

It was something a lot of people on the internet were saying, but the comparison was like apples and oranges. Vivere had broken down crying like so many other women who had been proposed to in such a heartfelt way, likely overwhelmed with emotion – the video was quite clear about that. Seven had one of the best phones for photo and video with a front-row seat, and so it was easy to see. The cropped and enlarged phone picture on the tabloid could be interpreted any way they liked since the quality was so poor.

That rang another bell in Jaehee’s mind. She followed drama about Zen this closely to be able to regurgitate theories concerning their relationship but she didn’t know about Zen’s lead role in a musical next summer?

“I don’t think you need to worry about Miss Park and Mr. Han too much, they seem very happy together,” Jaehee again attempted to reassure her, but it was half-hearted. Not because she didn’t believe what she said, but out of exasperation. It was becoming tiring to field everyone’s complaints about her boss’ relationship. Why were they complaining to the assistant anyway?

“Oh, I don’t care about Jumin, I care about Zen,” the woman laughed.

Even though Jaehee didn’t say anything, the woman reached over her desk and took the notepad and pen out of her hand, jotting down a phone number and a name. “Glam Choi.”

Hm, that seemed awfully familiar.

“Since you’re so close to Jumin, I’m sure you’d have plenty of opportunities to see them. Anything that would help protect Zen’s career—”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but in my position I wouldn’t be as useful as you think I would,” Jaehee tried to hand the paper back to her, but the woman stepped back from her desk without taking it as if she was refusing to be handed it. “I’m just a glorified secretary.”

Briefly Jaehee wondered if she should talk to Mr. Han about the woman.

“Just in case,” she shrugged.

Jaehee bowed slightly in her seat, tucking the paper away. It would be a good reference later if something happened. It was clear this woman wasn’t here because she was concerned about Zen’s career, that’s for sure. She typically walked guests to the elevator out of the department, but she waved over someone else to do it, not wanting to leave her desk. Something was just off about the whole situation and she wouldn’t take any chances.

"Have a good day, Ms. Choi."

Jaehee bowed again in her seat as they were escorted out, Mr. Han passing them on the way in and pausing to turn around and watch them walk out. Neither woman acknowledged him more than a curtesy nod, which made the entire situation more strange. With the way Ms. Choi was talking about him, it seemed as if she knew him a lot better than that, at least. Mr. Han stopped at her desk on the way in with the smallest sigh. 

"Who was that?" Jaehee asked him, perhaps a bit more impolitely than she should have for being at work. She was more annoyed than she realized. 

"My father's girlfriend and her 'student'. What did they want?" His attention had been in the direction of they left in, but he turned to look at Jaehee briefly before discreetly checking their surroundings. 

"Nothing to discuss here, likely," she looked down at the piece of paper with the phone number labelled Glam Choi and tapped it lightly to bring his attention to it. She heard him hum, a sound she'd come to recognize as acknowledging he understood something. 

"Ah, later then," he told her, meaning it was private enough that their coworkers could run miles with it if overheard and it set her nerves on edge but she knew better than to let it show on her face. Half-a-dozen people would come up to her after his conversation and ask what it was about the moment his office door closed. "Send that number to Saeyoung, if you don't mind."

"Of course not, Mr. Han."

He paused, seemingly thinking over a decision that he needed to make. It was a state she was used to, and she remained quiet, using the private messaging function within the messenger to send over the phone number to Seven. 

"I'm sorry you're being dragged into this," he said, finally. "Allow me to explain over coffee after work. Viv mentioned you're quite knowledgable and that gives us an opportunity to sample the product of the coffee shop we will be expanding to three locations—"

"Pardon?"

A brow rose. "Coffee, Miss Kang. If you're amenable." 

"Yes, let me know when you're ready to leave for the evening," she nodded, trying not to reveal how shocked she was. Mr. Han returned the nod and turned to go to his office. If she was going to be part of this debacle, she should at least be better informed about the situation. 

And yet, Mr. Han paused at the door, a long, quiet moment before he said, "Try not to worry. Things will work out." He didn't wait for her to respond before he disappeared inside.

It must be worse than she thought. 


	8. Rush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is precious, choosing to live is hard, and looking at one's self to find where one belongs is scary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **{Rush}** is inspired by Treat Me Bad by K.Will and Hwa Sa

When they finally found her, she was curled up in the corner of a chair in the waiting room, sleeping.

Jihyun kneeled in front of the little girl, brushed her dark hair from her face, stroked fingers over swollen skin. Jumin looked around for an adult that she was with, that she had to be with, to figure out what was going on and why she was here. It was hard enough to find her, and it was late. It was so late that she should be home in her bed sleeping and visitor’s hours were over even if she was going in. Jumin didn’t, couldn’t approach her yet, he was still seething with anger and fear from not being able to find her. What if someone took her. He looked around the bland, white, empty hospital waiting room and the little girl completely unaware of her surroundings, vulnerable, alone, no one watching her, no one watching out for her.

Someone could have _taken her_.

Instead he took a deep breath, calmed himself, put those feelings aside to deal with what was in front of him. Jumin almost stopped Jihyun from touching her again, not wanting to wake her before they were able to figure out what was going on, but she woke up anyway. Large, maple-brown eyes blinked awake, and he heard her sigh, watched her tuck her face back into her knees. From inside the little space of darkness she’d created, a small, tired voice asked:

“Have you heard anything about Dad yet?”

“Dad?” Jihyun echoed.

Her head shook and she uncurled herself, rolled her shoulders back and walked up to the counter as if she’d done it a thousand times, the counter that was too tall and she couldn’t see over. There, the receptionist leaned over the lip of the counter to look at her, glanced up at him and Jihyun, and back down at the small person attempting to stand on her toes to look eye to eye with the woman.

“Can you tell me anything about my dad? None of the doctors have come out for hours.”

The receptionist asked for her name, turned around and asked several people for updates, and then shook her head. “Is there someone I can call for you, Miss Park?”

“No, thank you,” she responded, sounding much older than eight years old. “I want to stay here until I know if my dad is going to be ok.”

The lips of the receptionist opened and closed as a worried expression came over her face. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to reassure the child in front of her desk not tall enough to see over it.

“It’s ok,” Sujin reassured her, turned and returned to her seat. She just sat there, didn’t say a word to either of them, didn’t ask them to leave or to stay, didn’t even say hello.

Jumin sat next to her, wrapped an arm over her shoulder, brought her to lay against his chest. Jihyun looked at him like he didn’t know what to do either.

“I’m going to stay with Suji.”

“Ok, I’ll stay, too.”

“You guys don’t have to do that,” she said, more like whispered, as Jihyun squeezed into the seat really meant for one adult, but was currently seating three children. They had to adjust and angle themselves oddly and Sujin was more or less sitting on their laps, and typically two boys would be whining about being too old to hold her or being too close to another child but… but they needed it now. Jumin wondered who needed it more, she seemed to be handling this fine on her own, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.  

“We were so worried,” Jihyun told her, a bit of a whine, a lot of scolding. “We couldn’t get in touch with you at all, and no one could find you. Why don’t you have your phone with you?”

“Everything happened in a rush,” she shook her head. “I left without the charger and it died.”

“Even if I have to pay for it with my allowance I’ll make sure you get a new phone. This can’t happen again,” Jumin swore.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I just like my purple phone and they don’t make the new models in purple so I haven’t wanted to change it. I didn’t think about something like this.”

“Tell us what’s going on,” Jumin snapped. It frustrated him that he couldn’t keep it in check, felt her tense up. He held her closer to try to show he wasn’t angry, that he was scared.

Su took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Heroine.”

The two boys looked at each other. They knew about that drug, learned all about how dangerous it was from the course of ‘beware of drugs’ campaigns they had to attend every year in school, knew that taking it even one time could kill someone, it was easy to get addicted to, it had to be administered with needles and dirty needles were just as hazardous for a thousand different reasons. Jihyun let out a shuddering breath, gently rubbed Su’s back.

“Your mom…?”

“She’s gone.” Her hands trembled in his own, and Jumin gripped harder, trying to remind her that he was there. “Mom said she wasn’t going to tolerate it anymore, so she packed up and left a few days ago. He was really upset, and he did this again, and I tried to call her, and she told me she wasn’t going to come. She’s leaving for America tomorrow, said I can’t go with her because something about Dad and lawyers and stuff. Uncle Lin is going to come tomorrow but he has to take a plane in from Europe.”

Despite what he’d done to hurt her mom and herself, himself, she loved her dad, just like he loved his. Jumin understood dismissing the horrible things because you love someone, but his father had never done something like this. What was he even thinking, putting Sujin in this sort of situation?

“He might die, you know?”

“He’ll be ok,” Jihyun told her immediately, holding her tight. “This was just a setback, he promised he’d stop, maybe this will be the last time. Maybe he did it because he was sad that your mom left, maybe he thought it would make him feel better.”

Her hair fell into her face when she shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand why he does this. Sometimes I think he can’t help it.”

It was hard to be reassuring when the proof was right before their eyes, when they were sitting in the too-white waiting room of the hospital at midnight when they had school the next morning, listening to the occasional shouts of people beyond the heavy metal doors, the beeps of monitors and strained voices of announcements for doctors to go here or there, to do this or that. Each call brought anxiety with it – was that for her father? Each shout of pain, was that him crying out? The pound of a dozen footsteps rushing here or there, were they running to help him?

Why hadn’t they told her anything? She had a right to know, even if she was small. She should be able to know.

They had to call their parents, had to figure something out so that they would be able to stay with her, so that they could get her somewhere safe but they knew she wasn’t going to go anywhere that she wouldn’t be able to see her father immediately. Going home wasn’t an option, their neighborhood was a half hour away from the hospital. Were they really expected to wait here, with nowhere to sleep or do homework or even eat?

God, had she even eaten that day? How did she even get here?

What should they do?

“If he dies, I want to be here to say goodbye,” she said, quietly. “If I’m far away, then I won’t be able to sing his song for him.”

That caught him off guard. “What song?”

“Dad’s song. He wrote me a song when I was born, or at least, that’s the story of it. He said that when I sing it he’ll finally be able to be at peace, and leave this world happy. I think that means if I sing it he’s going to give up living. But if he dies like this, I bet it’s scary, and painful, so I decided I’d be able to sing it if he… he hurt himself enough that he’s going to die.”

Something clicked in his mind, then. “You mean, that’s why you don’t like to sing?”

“Yeah, cause Daddy says he can’t go away until I sing like he wants me to.” She looked between the two of them, and then down at her hands. “He said his dreams won’t come true until I sing like he did, and until then he can’t go where his mommy is. But mamaw is in heaven, so he must be talking about dying, and if that means I never ever sing, then I won’t.”

Jihyun and Jumin looked at each other, wild-eyed and grief-stricken.

Tears she seemed to be holding back slipped down her puffy cheeks against her will, and she angrily pushed them away. He knew she hated to cry. “You guys can go home cause I bet Mr. Han and Mr. Kim are going to be mad, but I have to stay here so that I can make sure dad will be ok. And if he isn’t—”

“He’s going to be ok.”

“Don’t worry about us, we’re going to be right here with you.”

Both reassurances were half-hearted after what she’d told them, but they were overwhelmed, scared and worried. She could he misinterpreting what happened and what he said. She could be… She was just a little girl, she could just not comprehend, those were adult problems and she could just…

Jumin desperately hoped she just didn’t understand.

He sighed, held her tighter and rested his head on top of hers, kissed her hair. “We’re staying. We’re going to get through this together.”

Jihyun rested his head on her shoulder. “Jumin’s right. We do everything together, even the bad things.”

“Especially the bad things.”

 

* * *

  
_{rush}_

_I don’t want to rush you but I can’t stop staring  
no pressure but you can make my wish come true_

_I don’t want to stop you but I can’t stop listenin’  
no pressure but your voice must be from my dreams_

_With that smile that sparkles like stars_  
_with that laugh that sets my heart alight_  
_Breathe, breathe life into this eternal fire_

 _Take me on a magic carpet ride_  
_let me be your prince tonight_  
_don’t say you love me, just stay ‘till it’s light_  
_don’t say you love me, just stay_

_I don’t want to scare you but I can’t imagine  
a life without you in it, even though I just met you_

_I don’t want to have you but I can’t just leave  
with your lips whispering my name the way you do_

_With those eyes that have captured my soul_  
_with a touch that has captured me whole_  
_Breathe, oh, breathe life into this dwindling fire_

 _have a glass slipper for me to try_  
_no one will keep us apart tonight_  
_don’t say you love me, just stay ‘till it’s light_  
_don’t say you love me, just stay_

_I know you can’t say those words after one night_

_I hope you’ll forgive me, alright?_

_Release the lock on this magic prison_  
_my body is a clock waiting for our time to come_  
_don’t say you love me, just stay, babe, just stay_  
_don’t say you love me (jagi), just stay_

Irrational. It was the description of his feelings at the moment, the adjective that made him abhor emotions, the one thing he wouldn’t allow himself to be in any circumstance. Except here he was, feeling this way.

Irrationally.

The sound of her voice when she sang. It seemed the older they got, the less he could resist the sheer lust that crawled up his skin when he heard it. She should be singing, she should be sharing this gift with the world. And yet Jumin wanted nothing more than to force her to quit and stay home, lift that voice only for him.

He _had_ to get this under control.

It didn’t matter much to Jumin that Viv was likely to be livid with Zen. Or maybe he was slightly pleased with the idea. As someone who didn’t care much about social media, he hadn’t known about anything until Seven sent him a link to the first video several days after it had been posted. She hadn’t mentioned it, likely because she didn’t think it was going to matter, or hoped it wouldn’t. So what if a few million people see her sing and play the piano? It wasn’t as if that was a new thing. Nothing seemed to come of it other than Zen’s non-stop complaints of his ‘dm’s’ being flooded, whatever that meant.

Then Zen posted a second video last night, with a caption that said something like ‘can’t stop listening to this new song Viv wrote for us, couldn’t wait for you to hear it so… double tap if we should record it!’ It had several million likes. Jumin wasn’t sure how significant that was. All three boys in CD made it seem like a big deal, and Kenji seemed to be frustrated that Viv kept saying ‘no’ to cutting a contract for a record deal, and Viv had to turn her phone off last night after she got twenty phone calls and counting from various industry friends who kept saying they would be her manager.

That morning, Kenji sent him the full song instead of needing to listen to the thirty second clip that Zen had posted online, and he instantly understood why so many people were calling her. But Jumin got that feeling that so often was pulled up when it came to his fiancée, and wanted nothing more than to sequester her away from everyone in the world. Possessively, thoughts of anger directed towards Zen for singing with her instead of himself was enough for him to realize that he needed to check himself.

 _Before you wreck yourself,_ as the saying went.

Once he was able to calm himself down, he revisited the recording.

The song itself leaned somewhat R&B, a deep, smooth groove that moved Zen, Viv, and Seven as they played. An easy smolder, swinging on the offbeat, the guitar chords inspired by but layered in the disconnected nature of a rock guitar’s embellishments from the sung melody. The result was an interesting conversation between their voices and the instrumental.

_“I don’t want to rush you but I can’t stop staring. No pressure but you can make my wish come true.”_

_“I don’t want to stop you but I can’t stop listenin’. No pressure but your voice must be from my dreams.”_

Zen’s voice smoothly came in first, reaching down into some of the lower parts of his range, resulting in a humming rumble. It was a seductive exchange when Viv sang the second verse, responding in the same pattern. She spoke in this range, making the melody sound easy and inviting. The lyrics seemed to be written with Zen in mind, as his vocal prowess was unmatched among their group, and Jumin would dare to say there were not many in mainstream music that was of his caliber.

_“With that smile that sparkles like stars.”_

_“With that laugh that sets my heart alight.”_

_“Breathe, jagi, breathe life into this eternal fire.”_

The exchange of lines was effective for the story they were telling, a first meeting and love at first sight. There were several themes that she liked to circle around when it came to writing lyrics, especially when it came to the RFA and now that extended to Carpe Diem, but it seemed it was more specific to the person she was writing about or for instead of following a theme when it came to the entire group. It made him wonder who or what inspired the piece, especially when he realized he was completely wrong about his long-time assumption that Viv’s lyrics didn’t hold hidden messages and feelings to crawl through.

_“Take me on a magic carpet ride…”_

_“Let me be your prince tonight.”_

Viv made a request that Zen answered, the two lines together alluding to _Aladdin_. The feeling of one being asked to take them away from a situation in their life, or maybe it was simpler than that, taking care of her during their time together, and a reassurance that he would. It was a very Zen-like line to include in the song, and it seemed as if he knew it since he winked to the camera and smirked as he sang the words.

_“Don’t say you love me, just stay ‘till it’s light. Don’t say you love me, just stay.”_

The end of the chorus they sang together, a parallel harmony, matching notes on different octaves. It created a more melancholy sound than the song would first suggest, bleeding into some sharpness, some dissonance, changing the key from what he’d first thought it was in. It was then that he realized it was a song that wouldn’t resolve well for the pair singing.

“ _I don’t want to scare you but I can’t imagine a life without you in it- even though I just met you.”_

_“I don’t want to have you but I can’t just leave with your lips whispering my name the way you do.”_

The pattern picked up again with the verse as Zen’s voice became slightly pleading, twisting the melody out of shape to make it feel sadder. Her response confirmed his suspicions of the song being about a failed relationship. Two perspectives of the interaction was being expressed, as if there were two different stories being told at the same time, Viv’s voice sounding somewhat apologetic as she told him she didn’t want something long term.

_“With those eyes that have captured my soul…”_

_“With a touch that has captured me whole…”_

_“Breathe, oh, breathe life into this dwindling fire.”_

It became clearer, then, that Zen’s perspective was he’d fallen in love and that Viv only wanted to be with him for that one night, sexually. The way he talked about her – she having the ability to grant his wish, she being in his life, she capturing his soul – was about the emotional connection needed to continue past this one event. The way she responded however, was always about the physical – his voice, his lips, his touch – denied his affection more dreadfully than simply saying ‘no’, Jumin thought. These types of stories weren’t uncommon in any medium, but were they often told with the woman being the one wanting the physical only? Jumin wasn’t sure, but it was interesting at the very least.

_“Have a glass slipper for me to try?”_

_“No one will keep us apart tonight.”_

_“Don’t say you love me, just stay ‘till it’s light. Don’t say you love me, just stay.”_

She referenced another fairytale, this time _Cinderella_ , and he wondered if alluding to fantasies had to do with Zen’s believing in the imagined possible relationship and she entertaining the notion in order to get what she wants. It added a possible tint of deception, made the interaction a bit more interesting from a narrative standpoint, and he knew how much Viv liked to paint stories with songs. Zen seemed to make another promise, likely to continue the allusion to the second fairytale story, as the family of the woman actively attempted to prevent them from being together.

 _“I know you can’t say those words after one night,”_ Zen’s voice sounded about to break, and his brows pitch as he closed them, pressing down on the keyboard in a manner that matched his frustration. It felt as if he was attempting to self-soothe, reassuring himself it was unreasonable for him to expect something from her in a situation that could be effectively called a ‘one-night stand’. 

 _“I hope you’ll forgive me, alright?”_ Viv smiled apologetically as the instrumental quieted behind her voice, breaking the rhythm of the song to climb an arpeggio into the ‘money note’ of the song, a beautifully heart-wrenching ringing of her voice when it completely disconnected, airy and gentle. Zen’s head bowed as he grinned, shaking his head, as if he was almost in disbelief at the sound of her voice. Jumin so rarely heard her sing that he could understand the sentiment, sharing the man’s smile.

_“Release the lock on this magic prison.”_

_“My body is a clock waiting for our time to come.”_

_“Don’t say you love me, just stay, babe, just stay. Don’t say you love me, jagi, just stay. Just stay.”_

It seemed to come together then, the final princess story being _Beauty and the Beast_ , this time comparing Zen to the clock who is not yet returned to a human, and she asking to be let go. In the first two, it is love at first sight, whereas the last, they gradually fall in love after knowing each other for some time. Perhaps asking to let go was in a manner stating she didn’t _want_ to be the princess of that story. Jumin had to admit that Zen had a way of pleading that was especially convincing. Seven and Yoosung joined on the last chorus, Viv’s soft interjected ‘babe’ matching the yearning feeling of Zen’s ‘jagi’ perfectly, the stair-stepped echoes of ‘just stay’ begging tenderly to a lover that didn’t want them. Simultaneously alluring and heartbreaking.

Zen turned to Viv with a grin and a laugh, held out a fist that she bumped with her own, looking just as excited and happy.

He closed the video and pulled up the contact for her father. Years ago, she’d revealed to him the reason she didn’t want to sing, and it was possible that if that fear could be quelled, she’d be willing to expose this last little part of her. If not, at least he’d tried. He thought that they were able to draw it from her before, as teens, before Rika came into the picture, but that ship sailed with the way RFA fell apart. No, there was one person who would be able to drag her from it now, and if he didn’t do it then he didn’t know when would be another opportunity to try.

“Mr. Park? It’s Jumin… did Kenji send you… yes I— that’s why I’m calling you.”

With a pause, he wandered to his bookshelves, took down the photo of himself and Viv, guitars in both of their hands. It always felt like it was someone else, the young man who shined with a bass and his friends standing beside him. He let himself lose the joy that music brought him when he needed to ‘become an adult’, and he absently wondered if he should take it back, now that he could. Was it fair to push her into something that he wasn’t willing to do himself? If it would encourage her to pick up the last piece of herself that she’d dropped when it was forcibly mined from her heart. It if would complete the bit of yearning jealousy he felt, not because of Zen as much as he wanted to blame him instead, but because of a situation he wished he could have – unabashed, unashamed.

“There’s something you need to tell Sujin.”

 

***

 

Singing lessons, band practices, doctor’s appointments, meeting with school directors and getting that worked out. Yoosung sat at his computer, LOLOL’s launch page sitting on his desktop. He was exhausted. It was an ungodly hour in the night and he could only think he was glad he was taking a break from school to get his mental health together. He’d only been a few times, and talking through the things that hurt drudged up things he felt were better left hidden away, but he was going to trust the doctor Jumin and Viv vetted and keep going for the time being.

“Come on, Superman, we’re waiting for you,” comes a voice in his headphones. “We can’t do this raid without you. You’re Omelet’s best tank and this is the brand new –“

“I don’t know,” he answered, looking at the clock. They were starting their promotion cycle for the new single in a couple weeks. He’d asked Viv if he could try singing and she’d been putting him through lessons daily to strengthen his voice and they were practicing their set from the last album for a special pre-promotion fan concert, plus she was constantly adding new songs for the new album. “I’m dead, guys.”

“Sounds like excuses to me,” laughed a second voice.

A third scolded the other two. “Real life is more important than this game, and so is your health. You should get some rest. You sound like you’re about to die.”

“It does sound like he’s kind of hoarse.”

“I wonder why that is.”

The cacophony of voices started up, some of their voices started to blend together. None of them sounded like her voice, and he momentarily wondered why he even bothered when she wasn’t here to say the words. So many things she wasn’t here to see, him going to school to become a vet to save animals because of her dog, making music in her place so that she might hear it and come back home. Yoosung momentarily wondered if she would be happy with what he was doing, if she was here. He still wondered, often, why she left. Where she was.

“Do you think if I got better at singing, she’d come back?” he asked, quietly, having not meant to say the words aloud. He hadn’t turned off the mic.

“Why would that matter?” someone broke off from the middle of raid preparations to respond to him. “No one is going to care whether you can sing or not if they care about you, dude. Who even asks questions like that?”

An anonymous voice to knock some clarity into his head. He felt his face heat up, embarrassed. “Ah, you’re right, I was just… thinking out loud. I sound so stupid right now.”

“That’s not what I meant. Look, Superman, I know you got it bad for this chick, but you have to let this shit go. It’s been, how long?”

“A while,” he replied, almost a confession that he kept tightly inside the box so that he wouldn’t open it and release more than he had. It was even worse that she was his cousin, that all the members of the guild mistook him for pining over a lost girlfriend, how much worse it was that he couldn’t deny it without making himself sound like a creep.

“I think what he means is,” a gentler, female voice interjected, “it might not have had anything to do with you. Maybe it was something she had to do for herself; sometimes people just need to do that. It shouldn’t be wrong, and you shouldn’t make it about you. Dwelling on what you could or couldn’t do is only going to make you feel bad about yourself.”

“Yeah something like that,” the other, gruffer, voice said. “Self-flagellation and all that. You end up with the fucked up back and she doesn’t know or gives a shit.”

“Join us on this raid, it’ll take your mind off of it.”

“I hate to be the dissenting opinion, but maybe home boy is swirling around his head ‘cause he needs to sleep. Ain’t it like, 4am where you are, Superman?”

Yoosung glances again at the clock, surprised that someone in his guild remembered his time-zone. Or maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. He’d been here almost daily for the last two years. “Yeah.”

“Your brain starts to riot when you’re sleep deprived,” the same voice continued. “We’ll be fine without you.”

“Superman, you’re not usually this tired yet,” someone else changes the subject. “What happened? Got something new on your plate?”

He wondered how much he should tell them but the band, the singing lessons, everything. The majority of them were outside the country, how much would they even know? He went for vague. “Ah, yeah, I’m sort of… a drummer in a band. My –“ he paused, not sure how to address Vivere in a general way that wouldn’t allude to who he was talking about. “-producer insisted I take some voice lessons.”

“Dude, aren’t you in college? How do you have time for all this shit?”

Yoosung chuckled, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t. I’m barely keeping up with school as it is,” he said honestly. “I was always told I didn’t have a good voice by… I kind of always wanted to sing and when I mentioned it to my producer, she was like, well, let’s do it. She thought I didn’t sing because I didn’t want to.”

“So why are you still in school anyway? Don’t you get paid enough? I mean, not to make assumptions but, if you have a producer that means you’re releasing music and signed somewhere, right? Concentrate on what you really want to do, not what people tell you you’ve got to do.”

Before he could answer, before the questions lodged in his brain, someone else piped up. “Maybe this is super weird, but I’d like to hear you sing, Superman.”

The noise picked up in his headphones again, forcing him to lift them from his ears until people started quieting down. Did they really want to hear him sing?

“Yeah, I bet you have a nice voice.”

“I want to hear you sing!”

“Do we really have a professional with us? That’s so cool!”

“I love singing, too, Superman, I want to hear your favorite song!”

“Fuck that person who said you didn’t have a good voice.”

“So, dude, let’s hear it.”

He sucked in an audible breath.

“No one is going to make fun of you,” one of them said cautiously reassuring. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, though.”

He shook his head even though he knew they couldn’t see. “Thank you, I’ll… uh, ok, I’ll try.”

There was a song he was practicing from another artist, a particular song Viv said fit his voice perfectly, maybe even better than the original singer which to him was absurd. It was the one she had him using for his lessons, and fortunately… well, he really liked the song. It was bright, upbeat, and said a lot of things he liked. A song about love not necessarily for a lover, but for someone who gives a heart a second chance at beating and wants to give that love back. A song for friends who support you and give you a reason to keep moving forward.

He breathes, once in, once out. He hears the chat quiet down at the sound of his breath, tense in anticipation. He almost refuses, but remembers the praise of his band members, from Viv, the glittering happiness in her eyes when she watched him let go of trepidation. They wouldn’t laugh. His friends, they’d never seen his face but they cared enough to be right here with him, having not even started the raid yet, talking to him, supporting him.

They wouldn’t laugh.

So he began to sing. He had a sweet, innocent sounding voice on the surface, or so Viv had described to him. Clear when he let his vocal cords connect properly, a natural humming quality to his lower ranges and a soft, spun silk to his upper range. Under that sugary timbre, the places where she kept pulling and peeling back the edges he tried so hard to keep hidden, laid heat, raw and bare. When Viv would lean over the piano after he’d gotten to the vulnerable place she’d wanted him, all melted eyes and a heart-stirring smile laser-focused on his eyes, he didn’t need to hear her say the words.

Someone in the chat exhaled a bit too loud over their mic, “wow.”

He ignored it, leaned into the song, soared over and through the notes. Singing from a comfortable, easy place, no tension in the face, no lifting from the chest, no pressing for impact. It didn’t need it - he didn’t need it. Yoosung could barely hear himself, but he couldn’t stop himself from, for maybe the first time, swelling just a little in pride.

The song trailed as it ended. He gasped a soft laugh under his breath that broke the spell, took a deep breath, a hundred voices and a thousand praises crashing against him and over him like a tidal wave, feeling completely and totally at ease. Flustered. Happy.

_Happy._

Maybe he didn’t need Rika to like his voice after all. Maybe he could like himself and that was all he needed.

 

***

 

Viv looked around her father’s dark condo, wondering where in the world he was. Kenji said he hadn’t showed up to work that day and he didn’t answer any of her calls or texts. A sense of dread crawled up her stomach, hoping she wouldn’t find him in a drugged out stupor again even though she hadn’t since she was in middle school.

There were a lot of different theories about addiction, why some people could quit drugs and never have the urge to do it again and some would never stop dreaming of taking another hit. It wasn’t something she’d discussed with her father, but she supposed he was of the latter since he’d tried to stop smoking cigarettes several times now and was never able to. Or never wanted to. She had no idea which one it was.

When she heard the twinkling of piano keys, she followed the sound through the penthouse suite until she came to a room surrounded in windows, her father and a white grand piano, a low-sitting table and cushions, a few arm chairs over a white fur rug. There were two walls that weren’t made of panes of glass, covered in musical awards and pictures from years of a lucrative career as a musician, song writer, and performer. The sparse room was where he’d compose most of the time, said the view of the skyline at night inspired him, and she could remember days coming home from college during Christmas break and summer months, listening to him play the piano through the night.

Pages of notation paper was spread everywhere, balls of it where he’d thrown it away. The piano was closed so he could write on top of it, sacrilegious for such a precious instrument, but he had a pencil tucked behind his ear and several bottles of water tossed here and there so she knew he was in a mood.

For a man of business prowess and marketable intuition, this was where he was home. These moments where he abandoned everything, holed up with his piano and just created something beautiful, this was when she was reminded who her father really was, the composer she aspired to be. It was the man her mother fell in love with, the human who didn’t care about money or fame. Who left ambition behind and what remained was tender, gentle. Someone who wanted to communicate the love he had in his heart in the only way he knew how.

She leaned against the doorframe, closed her eyes, and just listened.

A melody that sounded like discovery, stepping out of darkness into the light of the morning and finding out something that looked one way in the night looked totally different with the sun shining on it. A journey that started gently, slowly, letting you explore and root through piles of notes and chords to find something satisfying, something achingly so much like happiness that seemed to vanish and reappear with every phrase. Viv held back a sigh, not wanting to alert him to her presence, but the relief she felt when his skill remained, fingers expertly hitting keys like their locations were etched into his skin, into his bones.

Heavier, faster, the sound becoming louder, resonating stronger, the melody repeated, escalated, varied, became anticipatory, expectations climbing into the edges as things became flat and sharp here and there, tense yet bright. Then it released, quiet and gentle, an answer to a question. It shimmered, as if comforting a small child through some hardship, all the places where it had twisted righting itself, bringing the piece back to the feelings of sunshine and warmth that it pulled up at the beginning. It ended with strength and something about it was… loving. Soothing.

Viv hadn’t realized how much she missed this.

He launched directly into the next movement, sounding every bit like a lullaby, the variation on a theme. Light, ephemeral, something that could be lost any moment, like innocence and youth, something that lasts only seconds and you savor, hold on to for as long as you can. The first melting of frost in the spring, the first lick of ice cream on a blistering hot day. Something that can never be experienced again for the first time, but the wonder that comes with it a feeling that is desired over and over that you keep seeking it. It was hopeful, prayerful, soft and guiding. A moment after discovery and hardship to reflect, to decide that what you’ve gone through is worth it, and to take someone else’s hand and lead them across when they’re in the same situation.

Her father then turned to look at her and gave her a lop-sided smile. “Don’t just stand there, come in.”

“Daddy, you didn’t go into work today.”

He shrugged, stood from the bench and picked up the pack of cigarettes from the top of the piano and a lighter, slowly making his way a window. She wrinkled her nose, the acrid scent familiar and gut-wrenching. “Sometimes when the need appears, I must do what needs to be done.”

“Yeah, but, Kenji is freaking out pretty bad.”

“He’ll be fine, he has you to back him up if he needs it.”

“Come on, Dad, that’s shit of you.”

“I know, but you understand.”

She sighed, she did even though she wasn’t in the position like her father was where he could just bail when the mood struck him.

“Be a dear and play through that for me,” he started instead of… well, anything else he should have done. Apologized to her, called up Kenji and apologized to him, put out that cigarette. “I want to listen to it when I’m not the one playing it.”

“Seriously, Dad?” she complained, but she couldn’t help herself but be excited about getting her hands on the sheet music of such a beautiful piece. She shifted through it, rearranged sheets by page number, at least he was organized still, and played through the piece the best she could sight-reading. He hovered over her shoulder and took each page as she turned it, making changes and writing notes.

“And again,” he demanded, after going over the pages one more time, adjusting them, placing them back before her.

Of course she was going to do as he wanted. The second time was much better, not only because she had played it once before but because his notation was clearer, he’d added missing notes in places where it had made sense to do so, or added in notes that he had played but hadn’t written down. It felt wonderful playing his music for him again, these performance pieces that typically ended up in some sort of production. Once in a while he sequestered them away for his own satisfaction, only pulling them out of his repertoire when he wanted to show off or treat someone with affection.

She watched his hands gather up the sheet music and begin scribbling over it again, and while he did so, she took her phone out of her pocket, she opened the top of the piano and set it at the edge within her reach so she could turn it on and record the song.

A few moments later the pages were spread back out before her. He didn’t tell her this time, she didn’t need to be told, giddy with anticipation. She hit record as soon as she was seated, played through the first and second movement. When she’d finished, he turned off the recording on her phone, placed a hand on her head, a soft pet of praise before tapping out the cigarette and sitting next to her on the bright white bench.

They were quiet as they both listened to the playback, he watched with open interest as she sent it along through the messenger.

“I thought one day you might end up with one of those two boys,” he told her, softly, a warm smile spreading his lips, brushing her hair back behind an ear. “They always did take such good care of you.”

Viv flushed, looked at her hands, fiddled with the phone in her fingers and had to force herself to stop, turned it over so she couldn’t look at the stream of messages that popped up in her notifications in reply.

“You never needed a father like me.”

“I don’t think anyone is a perfect parent, Dad, and every person has their issues. I think you did okay regardless.”

He chuckled, pressed a kiss to her hair. “I’m fortunate you don’t resent me.”

“I just wish you’d stop smoking, that’s all. You know lung transplants are like, band-aids. Most of them don’t take and they last, like, four years. But they said you could get a partial transplant, if you’d just stop.”

“I know, birdie.” His head shook. “I know. It may be my bad karma biting me in the ass that I’m the one who got cancer.”

“No, Dad, you’ve smoked for thirty years on top of having been an alcoholic for half that time and regularly ending up in the hospital because of God only knows what drug cocktail you’d get your hands on.” She sighed, laid a hand on his knee. “I know that nagging you about it isn’t going to make you quit. Just don’t hate me for wanting you around for as long as I can have you.”

A hum, the redirection of his attention out the window over the gray city sky. It was looking as if it was going to rain, not quite cold enough to snow, but still horribly chilly. “It helps to know I have a daughter that loves me so much.”

“Dad, you know you’re a good person, right? A pretty fucked up human that’s made some mistakes, but you’re still a good person.”

“And everyone is at least a little fucked up, huh, birdie?” he laughed, a boney hand tilting her head to rest on his shoulder, half-hugging her to his side. “Yes, but thanks for reminding me.”

“You know I was pretty worried when you didn’t show up to work, too. Can you… at least tell me next time? Or even answer your phone?”

“Yes, I promise,” he replied, placed the pack of cigarettes in her lap that he was still holding on to. “Alright, Sujin, let’s go get those patches back out?”

“Really, Dad?”

“Yes, really.” A thumb brushed over her cheekbone as he smiled. “I want to be around to spoil my grandchildren.”

 

***

 

Fingers tripped over buttons, deliberately tugging at but not opening, teasing. When she looked down at him, her eyes glittered, her teeth grabbing the edge of her lips. Jumin loved how she seemed to sparkle in his arms – at times like this she was simply irresistible.

His lips magnetized to her jawline, smiling when she shivered, nipping lightly at skin that earned him the smallest sound of protest. He began to pluck out the pins that kept her hair back in its neat work bun, dropping them somewhere he couldn’t care less about and she attempted to shove his hands away. It was playful, she was always very clear about if she wanted him to stop, but she was giggling that breathless, inaudible puffing of air right under his ear and he could feel her smile against his skin.

“Jumin,” she scolded him when he began to dip his head to her neck despite craning into his touch, her hair finally tumbling over his hands. “Don’t you have a meeting soon?”

“I do, but I also have you on my lap.”

“In your office.”

“Is there a problem?”

“You were the one who insisted we didn’t do this here.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Mr. Han! What a naughty man you’ve become.”

“All because of you, my love,” he bit down affectionately, closing a fist in her hair tight enough that he felt her tremble, a soundless moan as her lips fell open and her eyes closed, surrendering to his demands. The other hand grasped a leg, pulled her more flush against him in the chair, her hands moved to the armrests to brace herself as she ground her hips down to his, tearing quiet groans from both of them.

There was some buzzing, and she blindly palmed his desk for the offending phone, while he occupied himself with collecting the rest of those offensive pins in her hair and flicking them to the floor, or wherever they ended up when he tossed them away, finding the path of stars behind her ear and trailing his tongue over them.

She hummed. “Well, this is rather awkward.”

“Angel, what is it?”

“Ah, someone sent you some nudes.”

“What?”

He pull back to look at her, down at his phone, and she turned it to him so that he could look at the screen.

The image she pulled up through the notification screen was pornographic in nature, a woman’s ample bosom exposed to him in what was supposed to be a seductive manner. His brow creased, not sure how many people had his personal phone number let alone would send him a picture of the sort. Well, other than Viv, and while she playfully sent him suggestive pictures at times, she never sent him any that were vulgar in any way. Considering their work situation, it was a quite a bit of risk to do so.

“These are not from you,” he glanced back up at her with a look of playful disappointment, setting his phone aside to reach for her again.

“Quite. I’m sure you know what I look like naked,” she laughed. “The number wasn’t in your phone. I wonder who they’re from.”

“I don’t care, I don’t want them,” he nosed her neck, attempting to get back to where they were, ignoring the bit of anger creeping up his throat.

“Shouldn’t you care? I mean, I should say, I care.”

When he pulled back to look at her face again, he could tell she was conflicted, lips pulled in and looking pensive. “Angel, the only person I’m interested in sexually is you. I try to minimize this by not giving out my personal phone number, but it does happen from time to time. Phone numbers are public information, after all.”

“I get this is the equivalent to the proverbial unsolicited dick pic, but that’s not what I mean. Depending on the sender, this could harassment.”

“Yes, true, but sexual harassment towards men is largely ignored by law enforcement. Considering my father’s reputation proceeds me, it would be pinned on me anyway. I will delete the photos, block the number, and simply move on with my life,” he scoffed. “Isn’t that what you must do with said ‘dick pics’?”

“You’re right in any other instance, it’s just that those boobs look awfully familiar.”

“I didn’t know you were interested in other women like that,” he rose a mischievous eyebrow at her. “Is that something I should take note of?”

“That’s beyond the point, Juju, you’re being rather avoidant.”

He hummed to acknowledge the concern, and took his phone back in his hand. He was starting to understand what she was getting at. With the slide of his thumb across the glass, he unlocked the phone and opened his messages, handing it back to her. “Forgive me. I wanted to go back to kissing you instead of dealing with this.”

She spent a few moments looking through the pictures, then huffed with amusement. “I knew it! It’s totally Sarah. Most of the pictures just don’t show her eyes, but she’s wearing her usual jewelry and, well, her hair color.”

Jumin sighed. She was the one who said multiple times she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, and now she was sending him photos of her naked body? Didn’t she understand he wouldn’t be interested regardless of what she looked like under her clothes? That sending him something like that would make him dislike her more? How did she get his personal phone number, for that matter? His father didn’t give it to her, did he? That was actually the most likely answer.

Unless he wasn’t the real target of the photos.

“It would not be far-fetched to presume she sent those photos for you to find.”

“That’s pretty obvious, unless she’s a total idiot, which I don’t think that’s the case. I bet she wanted me to find them so that I’d think you were cheating on me and break us up. I knew she seemed sort of weird when she kept saying she didn’t want you. Her personality did a one-eighty from the engagement party.”

He leaned an elbow to his desk and dropped his chin in his hand, curling his fingers over his lips. This was irritating. That quickie before his meeting sure wasn’t going to happen now. “The only thing we can do now is send this to Seven and see if it helps him.”

“Alright. I’ll take screenshots and send it to him but you have to keep the original messages. Screenshots can be created easily these days, most evidence require video recordings of messages.” Her fingers made specific motions of holding down several buttons at once, a small shutter sound each time she clicked them in simultaneously.

“That’s fine.”

Viv stood up, several pins falling from her lap and making her laugh before she placed his phone on his desk and straightened her clothes. “There’s no way I’m getting my hair back in that bun without a mirror.”

“Would you consider wearing your hair down more often?” she looked at him oddly, her head tilting in that cat-like questioning expression.

“You like it a lot, huh?” she grinned teasingly, shaking out more pins then combing her fingers through to dislodge the rest. “Sure, I’ll start wearing it down more. Not too long ago you were asking me if I was going to cut it.”

Jumin stood, brushed off the pins that were on him and his chair, and decided he’d pick them up later. When he actually checked the clock it seemed he had about five minutes. “And you told me I’d dislike it if you did, which you were correct, but my opinion of your hair and its styling is irrelevant. I have simply always liked your hair.”

She handed him his briefcase, and he leaned down to kiss her forehead. “You know what, you _have_ always messed with my hair, haven’t you?”

He chuckled, the small realization on her part somewhat amusing since he’d known it years ago. “I have.”

“Huh!” She picked up her purse and wandered towards the door. “You know, Kenji said you called him up the other day and requested a meeting with him. What’s that all about?”

“Just discussing contracts.”

“Whose contract?”

He dodged the question by placing the documents he needed into this briefcase. He didn’t expect her boss to tell her right away, they hadn’t been able to have that meeting yet. She seemed to look at him as if she knew exactly what was going on, but he ignored her pointed expression, knowing if he met it with something he would become even more suspicious. Instead he made himself look as normal as possible.

“You’re not going to tell me,” she concluded, and he shrugged one shoulder, snapping the locks on his briefcase shut. “Well, see ya later.”

“You’re not going to wait for me?”

“Hey, Jaehee!” She was ignoring him. He huffed to himself with a mixture of amusement and irritation. “Want to have coffee with me?”

“I have a lot of work to do today, Miss Park, I’m afraid that I can’t—”

“There’s this adorable new shop near the plaza and they have the best macchiatos. I bet you haven’t had lunch yet.”

“Well, you’re right, I haven’t but—”

“Jaehee. It’s my treat. We’ll be an hour, tops. I need to be in the studio by two. Unless you want to tag along and sneak a listen.”

He heard his assistant laugh and her chair move as if she was standing while he locked his office door. “You’re recording today?”

“Yeah, CD’s going to be promoting later this month, so we’ve got two songs plus, well, this is a secret but I have a new piece I want to give Zen for a solo track today for him to release, you know, for his theatre fans. Sort of as a gift? We’ll see if he likes it, though.”

“Oh my gosh, a solo track?”

Viv blew him a kiss as the elevator doors closed, while he crossed his arms to show his displeasure. He couldn’t help but smile when the doors shut, her playful teasing rubbing off as a pleasant tingle in his bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to try a different scheme for the song, incorporating the lyrics into the text more like a traditional songfic. Better or worse? I'd love to get your opinion on it!


	9. Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viv is forced to be honest with herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **{smile}** is inspired by Josee by Lee Aram

_{smile}_

_I dreamt about warm water again_  
_where the skyline and ocean meet_  
_morning colors of a watercolor painting_

 _I dreamt about fresh rain again_  
_droplets that leak in my bedroom window_  
_dark evenings and hot chamomile tea_

 _You’ll like it here, it’s peaceful_  
_it’ll be safe, I’ll keep you close_  
_tell me what you need to be_  
_to be you, you, you_  
_to be you, you, you_

 _I dreamt about your eyes again_  
_under the northern lights blinking away_  
_the dust that clings to us and steals_  
_innocence and –_

 _I didn’t regret growing up ‘cause_  
_I was blessed with your silent smile_

 _You’ll like it here, it’s peaceful_  
_it’ll be safe, I’ll keep you close_  
_the silence needn’t be so loud_  
_so be you, you, you (I want)_  
_only you, you, you_

_At the edge of the quiet ocean it’s—_

_We’ll be happy here, just us_  
_we’re safe here, tangled close_  
_my home is where your heart lives_

 _The silence needn’t be so loud_  
_so be you, you, you_  
_just you_

 

“I just don’t know why you’re angry with me, Rika.”

Su stepped back when Rika stepped forward, hands up in defense. The blonde breathed fury, eyes blazing like grass catching on fire and exploding.

“Just, tell me what I did wrong.”

“You know exactly what you’re doing!” she screeched, a finger flinging at Jihyun. “I trusted you with him! I thought I could trust you!”

“Trust me?”

“You’re always doing things together without me. You’re even in classes together without me! The other girls say he always pairs up with you during group work, and you make him smile and laugh just by being near him! You said you were just friends, and I trusted you!”

“Rika, sweetheart,” Jihyun tried to plead with her. “It’s a cooking class, you took it last semester. I needed an elective and it was the only one open, I didn't exactly have a choice. Plus Su’s good at it, and she’s patient with me because I’m _really_ bad at it. Besides, since it's required for freshman girls, they flirt with me the whole time instead of actually cooking, or they don’t let me do anything at all.”

“Why didn’t you ask me? I could have helped you!”

“Rika, you’re shit at cooking.” Su crossed her arms over her chest. “It’d be the blind leading the blind. Jiji’s, like, really bad.”

“That doesn’t excuse how sweet you two are to each other,” she accused.

“Not true, I’m always mean to him.”

“You’re always telling her to be nicer to me, Rika, what’s going on?”

“No,” Rika’s head shook. “No, you’re special to him, and he’s special to you. When he has a problem he goes to you, if he needs something he goes to you, not me! Why is that, Sujin?”

Su’s fists balled up at her sides. She knew what Rika was talking about, hoped that particular event wouldn’t cause a rift in their friendship, hoped that Rika would be understanding when Jihyun needed them and there wasn’t a space for her, she wished the dozens of explanations she’d given Rika would be good enough.

“Please stop, Rika,” Jumin finally interjected, putting aside his guitar. “If you’re going to attack Sujin you should be angry with both of us.”

“But—”

“No, that is the end of the discussion,” came his stern voice clamping down on the problem. “You’re hurting everyone in the room with your accusations.”

“Doesn’t it make you angry to see them so friendly, Jumin?” She retaliated.

Suji looked at Jumin, who seemed more relaxed for the situation than he should, who looked at her with a blank expression that felt… alienating for some reason. “Absolutely not. You should trust your boyfriend more than that.”

“I trust Jihyun. I don’t trust Sujin.”

“Then tell me what I’m doing wrong so I can fix it! Tell me what’s made you freak out like this and we can fix it!”

Sujin reached out for Rika, an attempt to comfort her, but was stopped in her tracks by the sudden crack of a loud sound, grit her teeth in automatic reaction and sucked in a surprised breath. Her ears buzzed, it sounded like someone was saying her name, and Rika’s name, before heat and searing pain bloomed suddenly on her face. Then she took a step back, leaned against the wall, before it registered that Rika had slapped her.

By the time Su’s senses had calmed enough for her to open her eyes again, Rika was crouched down, crying into her hands.

Jumin looked down at Rika mildly, then looked back up at her. “Are you ok?”

Su nodded, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Jesus Christ her face hurt. “I’m ok,” she lied. She looked at Jihyun, who was standing there in shock, and seemed like he wanted to move but he didn’t know where to go.

“No, she hit Su,” Jumin harshly denied, throwing Jihyun a warning look. “That’s not how we settle things here. I would like to hear the root of the problem so that we may move beyond this.”

Rika choked back her sobs, wiped her eyes with her hands. “Why have you been so insistent on Su singing instead of me, Jihyun? Why do you want to hear her voice instead of mine?”

“I… can’t believe that’s what this is about,” he pushed his hands over his face and through his hair. “You hit her because of a song, Rika?”

“You want her to sing!” she cried. “More than me, and Su’s voice is breathtaking and seductive and magnificent and everything mine isn’t and… I keep being pushed aside to let her sing, and that’s the only thing I’m good for.”

“You think I’m trying to seduce Jihyun because…” She sighed, shook her head. “ _Shit_.”

It _was_ all her fault.

“Look, Rika, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, ok? Please stop crying.”

Carefully, she tried to approach Rika again, inching forward until she was close enough to kneel next to her, held out her arms but didn’t try to touch her until Rika looked up at her with her ruddy face and bruised eyes from rubbing them and crawled up enough to collapse into Su’s arms. Sujin curled over her, held her tight. She wished she knew how she could prevent these sort of things from happening with Rika, she tried the best that she could at first, but the closer they got the more this sort of thing occurred. Well, not this sort. Rika hadn’t hit her before.

“I’m sorry, Rika,” she repeated, trying to adjust the other girl who was admittedly bigger than her, a little taller, and she had this massive head of hair that always got in the way, that Rika retreated into when she was upset. Su tried to brush her curls back to reveal her face again. “Come on, Rika, listen to me. Please stop crying. You know I don’t know what to do when you cry like this.”

“I _hurt_ you, Suji!”

“I know, I know, it’s ok.” _It isn’t,_ she heard Jumin mumble but she ignored him. “I can take it. Do you want to hit me again?”

“No!” Rika sat straight up in disbelief, red-nosed. Sujin just laughed, took her school uniform’s silk pocket square that she was sure to get in trouble for soiling and wiped at Rika’s nose. “Su, you’re supposed to be mad at me. I’m, I—”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Why does Jihyun prefer you over me?”

Su resisted the urge to look up at said mint-haired friend, instead keeping her focus centered on Rika. “I know it hasn't been that long, so it's hard to trust someone you haven't known that long even if it's your boyfriend. But, you know, Jumin’s right, you should trust him more.”

“I— you—”

“Are you really going to make me say it, Rika?” Su’s voice dropped to almost a whisper, because there were two guys in the room and she was just being forced to broadcast everything wasn’t she? But this was the reason Rika was paranoid in the first place, because Sujin was always so unwilling to talk about herself, how she felt or what was going on in her own mind. “I wish you would just trust him.”

Sujin tried to not look out of the corner of her eye when Rika looked up at Jihyun and Jumin, who had retreated to the other side of the room, talking quietly to each other. Jumin was standing with his arms crossed looking angry as a bull and Jihyun flailed emphatically, likely trying to appease him.

Under her breath, Rika sighed. “Jumin?”

“I thought you already knew,” Su shrugged, huffed the softest laughter through her lips. 

“Jihyun is trying to get you to… sing to Jumin…”

“Something like that. Would you like to embarrass me more?”

“I thought you wrote those songs for Jihyun, I thought he wanted to hear them from you because he—”

“I should have made sure it was clear what was happening. I thought he would have told you, but he probably kept it to himself in case you tried to push Juju.”

“But you’ve been hanging out so often alone…”

“We don’t hang out really… not without everyone else,” she shook her head. “He tutors me in Trig and Jumin tutors me in Physics once a week.”

“But that whole thing wit—”

“ _Please_ , I don’t want to rehash that again. He’s not… ok yet. He might not be for a long time.”

Rika sighed, took Sujin’s hands in her own, bowed her head to them. “I wish I could find a way to not be jealous of your voice, Suji.”

“It’s an easy excuse for me to not have to sing again,” Su chuckled sadly. “You know how much I hate it. Look, Juju doesn’t like me like that, it’s a moot point anyway.”

“I hurt you, Suji. I hit you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“God, please just be mad at me!”

Su smiled, “I think you’re mad at yourself enough for both of us.”

Neither of them noticed when Jihyun had walked over, gave Su an affectionate pat on the head before bending down to scoop Rika into his arms. Su let go of her when he easily picked her up, all swollen and sniffling, and carried her over to the sofa to sit her in his lap. “Perhaps you’d like to actually hear the song she wrote?”

Sujin sighed. “Jiji, I don’t want to start something else, alright? Don’t do this.”

“I just think that… Rika would really like it.” He smiled gently down at her, and Rika nodded.

“I want to hear it. It’s the least I can do, I didn’t even… give it a chance because I… I’m sorry Sujin.”

Jumin sat at the other end of the couch, crossing his legs and propping his chin on the armrest with a fist.

Sujin stood and shuffled over to the keyboard, changing the settings so it just sounded like a real piano, pulled over a stool so that she could sit, fussed while she got things set up properly. “I don’t want to hear anything about it, alright? This is the last time this is happening and— Jiji this is all your fault so just leave me alone about it, alright? This stupid song was all your idea.”

“I promise,” he held up a pinky finger and wiggled it in the air. “I’ll take responsibility for its bad reception.”

She took a deep breath, looked hesitantly towards Rika and Jihyun. He nodded, she clasped her hands at her chest, looking as if she was praying for Su to… something. Something hopeful in her face. Then she turned her attention to Jumin, waited until he met her eyes. The hand his chin was resting on curled around his mouth, he leaned more heavily into the arm of the chair. He was clearly still upset over the whole ordeal, and with how protective he could be, he would be for a while.

“Juju, I’m ok.”

“I know.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

He seemed to take a deep breath, the tension in his shoulders loosened some and he let himself relax a bit more. Watched her intently as she took another deep breath, and she gave him a nervous, small smile before she started to sing.

_“I dreamed about warm water again. Where the skyline and ocean meet morning colors of a watercolor painting.”_

_“I dreamed about fresh rain again. Droplets that leak in my bedroom window, dark evenings and hot chamomile tea.”_

Voice gentle, a soft melody almost like a lullaby, emerged from her lips. It was a series of memories that were only shared between the two of them, that was significant to them in small, profound ways. There was the first time they’d visited the ocean. Their parents had some sort of business conference and they couldn’t attend, sent them with staff and a credit card to this mostly deserted island. At first, it seemed like it was going to be the worst trip ever. Despite the fact that they had spent it talking at the edge of the water, she’d learned so much about him, so much from him.

Maybe something that meant a lot to her and nothing at all to him, the time she’d gotten sick and no one else was around. He could have just called someone to come take care of her, but he’d taken it upon himself, getting cold medicine from the store, making sure she’d eaten, making her tea when the fever gave her chills. He’d fallen asleep in the chair next to her bed with a book on his lap when she’d finally woke up after her fever had broken. It was likely because of the odd weather that made her sick in the first place, but she could never hate warm rains after that.

_“You’ll like it here, it’s peaceful, it’ll be safe, I’ll keep you close. Tell me what you need to be. To be you, you, you - To be you, you, you.”_

The gentle chorus was a promise, and while it was an idyllic place in the world that she vowed to find, it was also the promise he could be who he really was when they were together. All of them hid who they really were, and it seemed like he was tamping down his unique personality more each day for this professional demeanor he’d need. She didn’t want him to feel like he had to sacrifice everything, that he had a place where he could just be himself and didn’t have to worry about the consequences of it.

_“I dreamed about your eyes again under the northern lights blinking away the dust that clings to us and steals innocence and –“_

_“I didn’t regret growing up ‘cause I was blessed with your silent smile.”_

It was a reference to a series of books they’d both read, something that Jiji didn’t have much interest in doing but they had been for years. It had put them in a place where they had to think about who they were, the sort of choices they needed to make, whether or not sacrificing who or what you love for the greater good was always the wrong, or right answer. The hardest decisions weren’t hard because ‘should’ or ‘would’ but because everyone has a story, everyone thinks they’re doing the right thing, the good thing. Essentially a story about growing up, she used the line to allude to the way Jumin had taken care of her over the years, how reliable he'd been.

_“You’ll like it here, it’s peaceful, it’ll be safe, I’ll keep you close, the silence needn’t be so loud. So be you, you, you, (I want) only you, you, you.”_

_“At the edge of the quiet ocean it’s—”_

Su couldn’t help but smile as she practically whispered, a hidden theme sprinkled from song to song, a symbol that represented those who were dear to her. Jumin was this quiet ocean, one that she was standing in front of, firm and silent, one that she knew had fathomless depths that she wished she could get him to reveal.

_“We’ll be happy here, just us… we’re safe here, tangled close… my home is where your heart lives. The silence needn’t be so loud… so be you, you, you. Just you.”_

Then she rose her eyes to him again, felt too vulnerable to allow this to be happening, his brow had pitched and his hand had fallen away, looking just as torn up as she felt. It was one of the more sincere ways she could tell him she loved him that she could think of, in every way. As strong as blood, as life-giving as water, because what was a home without someone that loved you in it?

She lifted her hands off the keyboard and stood up from the stool, feeling raw and way too exposed and she needed a moment to pack all of those things back inside again so that she wouldn’t make things worse than they already were. Her face was probably redder than from when she was slapped, her hands trembled when they had nothing to do, and she kept her eyes deliberately off of her friends. It was likely that Jiji and Rika were waiting for Jumin to react, the whole fiasco put them in an awkward place, and probably put a lot of pressure on him to reciprocate something he didn’t feel.

That would be fine, because every word was still true regardless. Friends or more it would be how she felt.

“Stop staring,” she heard him gruffly complain, the shuffle of the couch as they got up. “Are we going to practice today or not?”

“After everything, I think I should… go home or something. I have a lot of homework to do,” Rika sounded sad. Sujin started the regular instrument maintenance hearing them, putting things away. It was a good reason for staying out of the conversation. Su felt a pair of hands grasp at her, pull her along into an embrace. “I’m so sorry, Suji.”

“It’s ok, Rika,” she rubbed the other girl’s back. “Already forgiven, already forgotten. Stop listening to those bitches at school so much, they’re trying to break you two up, you know. Don’t let them get in your head.”

“I never want to assume that about people but… maybe you’re right. That song was so pretty, Su, I’m sorry I didn’t—”

“Hey, can I give my friend a hug?” she heard Jihyun from off to the side, not asking permission but more or less politely telling Rika to let her go.

“How come I’m always getting mixed up in your stupid couples problems, hm?” Sujin asked him when he practically pulled her to the tips of her toes to hug her. She wondered often these days when he’d gotten so tall, and lamented the fact she was so short.

“I’m sorry, Su, I guess you should stop being such a great little sis to me.”

“I’m a terrible sister, Jihyun. Everyone tells me all the time.”

He laughed as if she was making it up and that sort of got on her nerves, but he released her and took Rika’s hand, waved a small goodbye as he lead her through the door. Jumin was occupied helping putting way instruments that had been left out, and when that was finished he sat back on the couch.

“Come here, let me look at your face.”

It was a command, and knowing they’d get into a fight and not having the energy for it, she just went over to sit beside him, let him brush her hair from her face and cup her tender jaw in his hands.

“It’s a bit swollen,” he concluded with a sigh. “Are you sure it doesn’t hurt? Do you need an ice pack?”

“It’s not so bad. Just a bit sore. You don’t have to fuss over me.”

“Su, you…” his head shook. “Just, come here.”

Then his hands on her arms pulled her forward, brought her to his chest, and only let go to readjust his arms to wrap around her, brought her so close that she had to drape her legs over his lap. For a moment he buried his face in her hair, breathed so deeply that he shuddered as he exhaled.

“I’m not good at this,” he said.

“Did you at least like the song?” she laughed nervously.

“Of course I did, don’t be obtuse. It’s more like…” she felt his hands clasp against her back, lightly squeezing handfuls of her hair. Those fists pressed her closer to him, the movement expressed what he couldn’t. It had affected him more than he knew how to admit.

“I’m sorr—”

“No.” He snapped, cutting off her apology fiercely. “Sujin, listen, I—”

She felt him swallow hard.

“I want to be your home, too.”

“You are.”

He sighed. “Good… good.”

Despite the fact that she felt him relax somewhat, he didn’t let her go.

And then the door clicked shut.

 

* * *

 

Viv stretched in her seat backstage, looking over another checklist and listening to the sound tests for Carpe Diem’s pre-promotion concert. They were going to perform their old set and throw in a couple of unreleased solo pieces. It was supposed to be sort of a heads up to their loyal fanbase that they were going to be active soon while also thanking them for sticking around. They were supposed to go on in fifteen minutes. The concert hall was packed wall to wall, every ticket sold out, to the point where they’d scheduled an second day of concerts.

Her father hand selected Carpe Diem to be the group she took care of for multiple reasons: they were her friends, first off, and secondly their star potential was insane. It was the only reason he’d taken them on as is when she presented the boys to him – leaving their image and music up to them (read: her) for the most part. He insisted that she manage them when he was first diagnosed. It was an opportunity that just _didn’t_ happen. She knew their sound, their purpose, and at the front of a new rock movement, she knew they were going to make waves. Their first album was excellent if not slightly generic, charting high especially in Japan. Dad also thought it would be a good step towards administration. “No one will want to promote you to Head of Production if you’ve never managed a successful group,” he’d said.

Viv heard the clambering of feet, startled, and jumped up from her chair to hide behind it at the last minute. Yoosung skid to a stop in front of her, falling over after grabbing her chair. “This is the worst ever!”

“Oh my god.”

The blonde bowed low and shrieked. “Sis, _please_ , you’ve got to help!”

Viv’s brows rose and she pulled up her chair. He only called her that when something really was wrong. “No?”

“The guitarist never showed!”

“What do you mean, never showed?”

“Like, they’re not here! We got a call and they said they’re not coming!”

“The fuck do I pay people for?” she sighed, looking around.

“What are we supposed to do? We re-wrote our whole set and all the new songs are for a _four person band!_ ”

_God dammit._

He squeaked about it being ten minutes until they went on stage. Viv groaned and walked around her chair. She wouldn’t be able to get any work done during the concert, then. “Oh my god. I guess I’ll play the concert, but you guys owe me big.”

“Then you have to get dressed, and… well, your makeup should be fine, right?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine in this. Just give me a minute.”

She pulled off her jacket and blouse, which was covering a black long sleeved and high-necked crop top and readjusted hair from its work bun into a messy ponytail at the top of her head. Her usual black jeans with rips down the thighs were tucked into her shoes to reveal heeled combat boots. The last thing she made sure to do was to take off her engagement ring and slip it on the chain around her neck, the solution she’d finally come up with to deal with the fact that playing the guitar with a ring on was basically impossible for her. With an ear of piercings and the stars around her ear on display, she looked every part of the rocker they’d try to make her into before going on stage.

Yoosung gaped at her.

“You better be prepared,” she narrowed her eyes at him, fishing through her purse to freshen up her makeup, being her usual red lipstick and black cat-eyed liner. Thank goodness she had spent a lot of attention on her skin this year since her complexation looked good for once in her life, so she only needed to make sure her lipstick wasn’t bleeding outside her lip-line. “I’m not going to go easy on you.”

Violet eyes widened, watched as Viv tucked her things away, and stood patiently while she had all the equipment strapped to her. Then she sauntered over to join the rest of the band that was waiting off the side of the stage for the show to start.

Zen and Seven turned to look at her, Zen’s eyes becoming as large as Yoosung’s as he scanned her down to her feet, and Seven offering a fist for her to bump. Of course she tapped it with her own.

With a wink, Zen’s silver brows arced into his bangs. “Damn, Viv.”

“That’s my girl,” Seven smirked. “I knew you’d bail us out.”

“Fuck off, Seven.”

The smirk turned into a full grin.

Everything went pitch black and stage hands guided them out onto the stage, got the guitar over her head silently, and ran off. The lights switched back on, and people started to scream. Somewhere behind them Yoosung yelled the count, and then walked them into the first song.

Viv forgot what it was like to perform like this, barely being able to hear yourself in the earpiece due to shrieking fans, almost blinded by the lights, the vibrations of the drums reverberating through your very bones. Her fingers played on their own, the ephemeral high of each song rising and falling through her body every time. At some point it seemed the audience faded away, she was just playing music with the three guys who she’d been making music with for years, feeding off each other’s energy and bringing it to a boiling point.

By time the break of the first half came, she was drenched in sweat from the lights. She wiped her face and neck with a towel and looked over at Zen, who looked every bit like a goth knight at the mic, almost drowning himself in water before coming up for air.

“Yo,” he laughed into the mic. “Give it up for our girl, Vivere. You know our guitarist bailed on us fifteen minutes before the show?” he said into the mic. The crowd screamed their distress. “Ya’ll remember that video I posted on my socials of a snip of our new winter single? This is her. This babe is actually a good friend of ours, and writes our music with us. She legit just dropped everything so she could help us give you the best show we’ve got.”

Viv adjusted the lavalier mic. “Yeah, you shits better be grateful.”

“She’s also a bitch,” Seven laughed.

With a wicked grin, Viv winked towards the crowd and gave a small salute. “Got that right.”

The crowd’s deafening cries were either of excitement or anger, but Viv couldn’t tell which. She chugged a water bottle instead, letting them talk.

“What do you think of an extra song, Viv?”

She ran her tongue along her teeth, looking to Seven and Yoosung. Seven gave her a thumbs up, Yoosung nodded and pressed his hands together towards her in a ‘please’ motion.

“Maybe, depends on the song, Zen.”

“You know, that one duet we’re workin’ on?”

The crowd screamed so loud she thought her eardrums would burst.

“Yikes, ok, ok,” she laughed.

“Hell yes! You cuties are going to LOVE this!” He motioned for her to come closer. “It’s a duet, get your ass over here.”

“Ugh.” Despite the sound of complaint, she joined Zen in the middle of the stage where his keyboard was set up to stand next to him. “This is something a bit different for Carpe Diem, something special for your the fans in the winter. I hope you like it, it’s called _Rush_.”

They used the song to launch them into the second half of the set, and Viv couldn’t help but be grateful that she’d had a chance to play again for one evening.

 

***

 

The results were always unexpected.

Viv never took herself as an especially good singer, nor did she want to be in the spotlight, and she didn’t actually like to perform if she had to sing. She’d do it for or with her friends, because she loved them, but _she_ didn’t care for the lifestyle that being a celebrity would bring about. Perhaps it was because of the way her life was pretty much destroyed by her father’s music career, one they were still paying the consequences for all this money and fame. Viv was often not taken as a serious musical artist because of her father’s status, which was the whole idea behind having a penname. Not that it mattered. People knew exactly whose daughter she was these days.

So when things like this happened, Viv was just confused.

It was also just way too early in the morning, the concert lasted way too long into the night. Her head was hurting from the noise and the lack of sleep, forcing her to keep her hair loose that day. She was on her way to work when she’d recognized a shitty screenshot from a video of the concert from the night before. Viv rolled her eyes and ignored it, but the tabloid kept popping up.

She checked her phone, finding like a dozen texts from the guys.

[Zen: 06:25am] holy shit  
[Zen: 06:26am] someone took a video of the new song it went viral AGAIN  
[Zen: 06:26am] like all over the world  
[Zen: 06:27am] 50 mil views in a few hours

It was too early for this.

[Zen: 07:03am] Look at this shit

There was a picture of a news stand with different tabloids with them on the cover, with various headlines.

_Jumin Han’s Fiancée Revealed as Renown Musician Vivere!_

_Carpe Diem Storms the World With Unreleased Single Featuring Composer & Songwriter Vivere!_

_Rock Stars Carpe Diem Hit The Ground Running With New Viral Single!_

_Carpe Diem’s New Single Is A Complete Mood_

_Carpe Diem’s Feat. Artist Vivere Doesn’t Want To Be Your Princess Because She’s Already Taken_

Viv sighed, tilted her head back to look at the overcast November sky and asked, ‘why?’

[Zen: 07:05am] I’m not sure if I should be excited or terrified  
[Zen: 07:06am] Even tho we’re signed, we still generally run in underground circles  
[Zen: 07:07am] This could either make us super famous  
[Zen: 07:07am] or we could lose all our cred in the underground  
[Zen: 07:07am] the worst possible outcome  
[Zen: 07:07am] or fans think we’ve sold out and drop us  
[Zen: 07:08am] like a hot potato

[Yoosung: 07:09am] Zen  
[Yoosung: 07:09am] stop  
[Yoosung: 07:09am] stop  
[Yoosung: 07:09am] please  
[Yoosung: 07:10am] thats so stressful I dun want 2 thin kabout it

A limo pulled up next to her and the window rolled down, but she ignored it, trying to clear off the hundreds of notifications from her phone. She hated those little red circles with a passion, and nothing could make them stop stressing her out, no matter how low the number was.

“Hey, babe.”

It wasn’t Zen or Seven, the only two guys would call her that and not get their faces kicked in.

“It’s rude to ignore me, it would make our business relationship difficult, don’t you think?”

With a deep sigh, she turned her head and gave a slight nod to the man hanging out of his window like a complete asshole. “Good Morning, Mr. Gyun.”

“That’s better,” he smirked. “You’ve made waves today, haven’t you?”

“Not intentionally.”

“I know, Park’s little girl keeps as much out of the spotlight as possible, even got herself a fake name and everything. What’s that mean, anyway?”

“You could look it up, I’m sure you have a phone.”

He clicked his tongue at her. “You’re so mean to me.”

“I’m mean to everyone.”

“Even your sweet Mr. Han?”

“Especially him.”

Gyun laughed. “I believe that completely. You’ve always been a bit of a bitch haven’t you.”

She rose an eyebrow at him. She wasn’t offended, if that was what he was trying to do, but she wondered what in the world he was trying to accomplish by telling her something she already knew.

He motioned with the tilt of his head. “Get in.”

“Why did you think that would work?”

“It usually does.”

She scoffed. “You can leave now.”

He turned into the car and the driver stopped, letting him out. Viv didn’t bother to stop and wait to see what he was doing, so Gyun had to jog back up to her. “It seems we’re going to the same place. In fact, the same meeting.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Let me get your bag.”

“No. Don’t pretend to be polite.”

“I won’t then,” he barked a laugh and forcibly yanked her bag from her hand, making her squeak in surprise. “Ah, I like that sound.”

“You’re such a creep,” she had to hold back practically snarling at him, settling for exasperated.

He only laughed. “I’ve made a request to Han to give me Carpe Diem’s advertising campaign.”

“AM doesn’t use in house—”

“Exactly. Technically, is it in house if it’s a separate subsidiary?”

“Absolutely. Communications is always trying to squeeze work out of production. You guys should get your shit together and maybe we could play nice.”

A hum of agreement. “I have nothing to do with that.”

“Chief of Communications and you have nothing to do with making sure your department is on schedule?” she laughed mockingly. “No wonder you have so much time to harass women.”

“You might be right.” He shrugged.

“If that’s all you’ve got to say to me, you could’ve done that at the meeting.”

“Maybe it would give us the opportunity to see each other more often.”

“Ugh.”

“Considering the success of their previous album and that little performance with you featuring, I’d say it’s an opening for an award winning campaign.”

“A better reason, but I’m not going to be singing, so there’s that.”

“Trying to leave something incomplete?” he taunted. “You know that song isn’t going to be the same with someone else singing it.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“You know it does. You just want to hide like the coward you are.”

That was a low blow, but she wouldn’t let him see that it hit right where it hurt.

“No comeback?” he cackled. “Keep digging your heels in like a stubborn child if you want but everyone already knows who you are. You’ve already fucked up.”

“Why bother?” she rolled her eyes. “You’re the one who said I’d have to get plastic surgery to be pretty enough to sell.”

“What do they call it in English again? It was a _neg_ , I’m sure you know what that is.”

“Just pointing out the hypocrisy of your ‘encouragement’.”

“If there isn’t a contract, don’t expect anything I say to be true.”

“Whoa, dude.”

“That’s business, babe.”

Viv felt like she needed to take a shower. Looking up at the C&R building and then taking her phone out to check the time, she realized she had about twenty minutes before the meeting and likely Jumin was at work already, but she had like ten missed calls on top of that.

“Can I get my bag back?”

“No ‘thank you’?” he moved her bag behind his back.

“For someone calling people a ‘child’ you sure are acting like one,” she replied mildly, and in a voice lacking gratitude to the point where it was almost insulting, she said, “Thanks for doing something I expressly said ‘no’ to.”

He handed her bag back to her with a sly grin. “Looking forward to working with you.”

“The feeling is _so_ not mutual.”

 

***

 

“Jumin!”

Jaehee’s fist halted in midair, about to knock on her boss’ office door. Miss Park didn’t sound happy, whatever it was she was yelling about. Jaehee wondered what she should do, since he hadn’t answered his phone and his father and girlfriend were at her desk waiting impatiently.

“I can’t believe you. I told you _no_.”

“There’s a clause in your contract that stipulates—”

“—I don’t care about that.”

“Suji, I promised your father that I would at least attempt to convince you—”

“—Dad doesn’t trust me to know what’s best for myself, and I don’t appreciate—”

“—that’s not it at all and you know it. You’re afraid he—”

“—and it’s my business, you have no right to—”

“—would you just listen to me?”

“You’re the one who isn’t listening!”

She’d never seen them argue, ever, even though Vivere spoke about it sometimes. Jaehee thought she meant they used to argue a lot as children, but hearing them like this was almost worse than walking in on them being intimate. What was she supposed to say to Chairman Han? ‘Mr. Han is currently arguing with his fiancée at the moment, would you mind coming back when they’re done?’

And Ms. Choi… Jaehee remembered the conversation about Zen almost verbatim and the subsequent conversation with Mr. Han. The prospect of whether or not their relationship would last wasn’t even something Jaehee felt it was her business to speculate on, though if she did she’d say they would be the one pair that was likely to have a long lasting marriage. Walking in at the rare moment they were arguing like a normal couple… surely she’d expose that event in the attempt to ‘protect Zen’.

Even the thought that the woman’s motivations were in Zen’s best interests almost made Jaehee scoff aloud. For an actress, she was quite bad at acting.

“Please, Juju, I don’t want to do this,” Vivere practically pleaded. “Dad said he wanted to live for our children. What if I mess that up?”

“You’ve taken responsibility for your father’s well-being since you were eight years old, Sujin. Your father is going to be just fine. Let him take care of himself.”

“But—"

“You’re _afraid_ , and that’s a poor reason to not do something you love so much. You’ve convinced yourself that you hate singing, but both of us know it’s the one thing you enjoy the most.”

There was a long pause and Jaehee really hoped he’d at least hugged her.

“My love, stop lying to yourself.”

“Even if I admit that I actually love singing, more than anything else, that doesn’t change the fact that Dad considers himself to be finished with life in general once he accomplishes one thing. And that’s my singing career being as successful as his was.”

Jaehee wasn’t sure when she should return to her desk but it was in sight of his office door and, well, maybe she could duck into another office for a moment to give them a bit of privacy. If felt rather disrespectful of her to listen to this - except, Ms. Choi seemed to be getting restless, gesturing animatedly. If she looked like she was waiting, then it would seem as if Mr. Han would come out of his office any moment. It was just that, something about this conversation felt… important. Important enough that she thought interrupting it could change the outcome of things. She wasn’t sure what those things were, but she knew that change would affect every person around them.

“His mental state is a lot better than that these days, Su. He’s talking about the future now, one with him in it. Meeting your mother, spoiling our children, finally stopping smoking so he can get that partial lung transplant before the cancer comes out of remission, which it will if he doesn’t stop. He hasn’t had a drink in months. He even went back to work. People live decades with stage four COPD with the right care. He’s doing better.”

Someone sighed, heavy and stressed. Jaehee could only presume it was Vivere.

“Give him the space he needs to keep the positive trajectory. You could be what starts to hold him back instead of what keeps him moving forward.”

“God I would hate myself forever if I did that.”

“I know you would.” Mr. Han continued in a gentle voice that Jaehee had never heard before, she didn’t think he was capable of, one that made even Jaehee’s heartrate pick up. If Chairman Han was still having a part in attempting to break them up, then he hadn’t heard this voice from his son with this woman. He should hear it. That cold-blooded robot was miles away. “Besides, our friends are counting on you.”

“Laying it on thick, huh?”

“I’m merely reminding you of everything you’re ignoring due to refusing to let go of this irrational fear.”

Again, that burdened sigh.

“Zen would be heartbroken, you’re the only one who connects with music the way he does and he’s wanted to sing with you for years. Yoosung looks up to you, he wouldn’t be in therapy now if you hadn’t encouraged him to get over his own fears. Saeyoung is uncomfortable with other people joining the band, you know he’s the one we have to protect the most. Saeran is counting on us to act in Saeyoung’s best interest, he’s trusts our decisions to guide his brother so he doesn’t get taken advantage of again. That’s the only reason why he’s still working in music after the Agency.”

“But what about where I’ve failed, Juju? What about you, and Jiji, and Rika?”

“All three of us made the decisions we thought were best for us at the time, and you supported those decisions no matter what they were. It’s not your job to fix everyone’s problems, remember? You tell me that all the time.”

“It’s just our job to support each other. Yes, I know.”

“I know you want this; you come alive on stage.”

“But what about you? I’ve missed that part of you. You _can_ now, there’s nothing holding you back.”

“I’ve been considering it,” Mr. Han laughed softly. “When Rika and Jihyun left I… Your passion sometimes brings mine to the surface.”

“You mean it?”

“I do. I’ll make time for it.”

Now seemed like a good time, as they both grew quiet, and didn’t continue. Jaehee waited a little longer, hoping in the silence he was being affectionate in some way. She had no idea her father had cancer, and having lost both of her parents… no, she couldn’t exactly relate, but it wasn’t exactly private information the sort of life Mr. Park had lead when Vivere was young. Many did not think of how it affected Vivere those times he’d almost killed himself.

Jaehee made small knock at the door, a pause and then a second.

“Yes?” His voice came through the door, voice still soft.

“Mr. Han? Chairman Han and Ms. Choi is here to speak to you.”

He sighed, the expulsion of exasperation. Jaehee agreed completely.

“I can try to stall them, if you need—”

“No,” even though he interrupted her, it was said without drawing up his usual sharpness, the door opening to face her. “I’m sorry if—”

“—no. Is Miss Park alright?”

“I’m fine, Jaehee, I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m sure you heard that. This singing thing has me pretty rattled,” Vivere answered from the window where she was standing in a jumpsuit. She wiped her hands on her pants, looking worn out and nervous. “I’m not really dressed appropriately to see Chairman future father-in-law. I’m supposed to be in the studio today, actually.”

“I’m sure Chairman Han won’t mind. It’s all designer, and you look pretty cute- he can’t be that put off, right?” Jaehee smiled at her, a small wave to greet her. Vivere came over to the door to greet her, giving her a hug. “Would a cup of coffee help?”

Vivere nodded. “God, you’re a blessing, Jaehee. When are you going to stop calling me ‘Miss Park’?”

“When I’m not at work,” she tsked, turning slightly to look back at Chairman Han and Ms. Choi still standing at her desk. “They’re determined.”

Viv leaned around her, as she was shorter than Jaehee, to look. “Does that mean I should call you Miss Kang?”

“I honestly don’t care.”

With the pat of Vivere’s shoulders in reassurance, Jaehee returned to her desk and bowed to Chairman Han and Ms. Choi. “Pardon the wait. Mr. Han is ready to see you now.”

“How could he,” complained Ms. Choi. Jaehee ignored the comment and turned to fetch the beverage. “Keeping his own father waiting for such a long time.”

“My son is a busy man,” Chairman Han tried to explain in a placating tone.

Jaehee continued to not acknowledge their conversation, since she didn’t want to get pulled into giving them a reason for the delay.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Jaehee asked instead, pouring a cup from the coffee maker behind her desk. She had her own, of course, since she tended to drink a copious amount of it and she was rather picky about the blend and the freshness of the roast.

“No, thank you,” Chairman Han shook his head while Ms. Choi shot her a glare. Jaehee poured a second cup for herself and then led them down the hall to Mr. Han’s office.

“I think your opinion is biased and shouldn’t be the catalyst for whether or not my contract is adjusted. It’s a feature, that would technically be freelance. Besides, all this happened because of a no-show, so what do we do about that? Usually, we’d write them off forever but there seems to be extenuating circumstances. Is it possible you could find Saeyoung’s old contract? Apparently Van is from the same company he was and that’s looking like it’s going to be as much of a problem as it was last time.” Jaehee heard Vivere say from inside.

“The Agency?” he clicked his tongue in response. “Unfortunate. Does that not mean the entire band is from The Agency? That was quite a bit of legal legwork. I doubt we could count him under the coming year’s acquisitions. They’ll have to be amazing for me to convince the board to even consider undergoing the process of getting them out from that label. From what I remember, they weren’t _that_ good.”

“But we know what we’re doing this time and Van alone is worth the investment. Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“Is that girl here?” Ms. Choi scoffed. “No wonder he kept us waiting.”

“It still sounds like they’re discussing business, dear.”

Jaehee held back a sigh. There shouldn’t be a circumstance where the boss of a company had to explain to an unaffiliated person that someone was doing their job.

“She’s not supposed to be here. I want her to leave,” Ms. Choi snapped.

“We can’t kick her out of his office, that would be rude of us.”

Jaehee tapped the door with her foot to make sure that the conversation didn’t go further. “Mr. Han! Chairman Han and Ms. Choi has arrived to speak to you.”

“Yes, let them in.”

When she opened the door, he was sitting at his desk and Vivere was looking at her phone, standing at his wall-length windows.

“Good morning Mr. Han, Ms. Choi,” Vivere politely bowed.

“Good morning, Sujin,” his father greeted, seemingly pleasant enough, giving her a smile.

“Why is she here?” Ms. Choi fussed, sitting in one of the chairs in front of Mr. Han’s desk.

“Come, now, Glam, don’t be impolite. She’s my son’s fiancée and they work together frequently. It’s nothing special.”

Vivere turned back to the window with her phone. Mr. Han seemed to choose to not say anything about it himself either. No wonder he was irritated when he heard the news Ms. Choi was with the Chairman. Jaehee took that moment to press the cup of coffee into Vivere’s hands with an extra gentle pat to the shoulder.

“Thanks, Miss Kang,” Vivere grinned when she said it, apparently amused. Jaehee couldn’t help but smile a bit herself.

“Is there a reason you’re here without letting me know you’re coming, Father?” Mr. Han drawled.

“Ah, well, you have not been accepting my dinner invitations lately and so I wanted to give you the good news,” Chairman Han stood a bit straighter, placing a hand on Glam’s shoulder. “Glam and I are going to get married.”

“Father, you’re already married,” Jumin pointed out.

“Of course I will have to divorce your step mother first, but we’ve been separated for years and it would be about time, I think.”

Jumin took a deep breath, seemed like he was going to say something more, but Vivere’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. He looked up at her, it seemed as if they communicated something to each other without needing to speak though Jaehee had no idea what it could be, before he slowly let go of that inhale and turned back to his father to nod his head in a slight bow. “I wish you both happiness, then.”

Vivere smiled and leaned into him, and he wrapped an arm around her legs to rest a hand on her thigh. “Congrats, Mr. Han, Ms. Choi.”

Chairman Han’s mouth seemed to almost drop to the ground, then he took a long look at Vivere before returning to his son. “You have no objections?”

“Even if I did, it would be no place of mine to interfere, Father,” Jumin explained.

“We just want you to be happy, Mr. Han,” Vivere directed that kind smile to Chairman Han, who seemed to deflate after steeling himself for a fight.

“Is that all you needed to speak to me about?”

“Actually… it is.”

“We should celebrate,” Vivere suggested in the same light, smiling voice. It was a world away from the one from a few minutes ago, deliberately sweet sounding. Jaehee felt that false happiness in her bones, an act she had to put on daily herself. “Something small, hm?”

“Ideally… a small get-together would be quite a bit easier to manage time-wise. Both of our schedules are packed. Assistant Kang, would you be so kind as to contact Viv’s and Father’s secretaries to find an open space in our schedules within the next month or so?”

“Of course, Mr. Han,” Jaehee nodded, making a mental note that she’d write down at her desk, noticing the extra mile of kindness he’d extended her way and hid a bit of a smile behind her cup. It was something that everyone in the department was beginning to notice. Mr. Han was… loosening up a bit.

“Then if you would excuse us, I was in the middle of a meeting with my fiancée.” Jumin moved his chair so that he could guide Vivere to sit on one thigh, leaning around her to pull his laptop closer. “I would at least like to make time to come to your next live performance, my love.”

“The promotion schedule is already set in stone. You should already have it.”

“Ah, you’re right. It’s in my email. Let’s see…”

Jaehee watched Chairman Han become uncomfortable as the pair became silent, her on her phone on his son’s lap as he worked on his computer. He looked at Ms. Choi, who seemed to be steaming with hatred, likely, but couldn’t say a thing as the pair hadn’t given her a reason to be belligerent. It felt like she was desperately looking for a reason to blow up. Was that being judgmental? With how the day had begun to escalate, the lack of drama seemed rather… anti-climactic.

Not that Jaehee was complaining.

“Will you look at this proposal for me?”

“I’m still not sure why you like for me to look at these.”

“An untrained eye sometimes catches things that an experienced one doesn’t,” he explained, fishing out a folder from the stack at the corner of his desk and handed it to Vivere, then looked up from his laptop to direct his gaze to Ms. Choi and his father. “I’m sorry, is there something else you needed?”

“No, son. I’m sorry for the interruption,” he seemed to have startled the Chairman out of some thought, and he began to help Ms. Choi out of her chair. “We should have dinner together soon.”

“Yes, though I am quite busy at the moment. We’ll make plans after Carpe Diem’s promotionals.”

“Of course, of course,” Chairman Han’s gaze went back to the young lady on his son’s lap. “Sujin, I saw that video, your voice is… beautiful. I’d forgotten how well you sing. It seems like you belong on the stage, just like your father.”

“Thanks,” she blushed a bit and nodded her head politely. “It looks like I’m being roped into actually recording it.”

“Are you?” he seemed interested in that, his demeanor brightening. “Daesuk will be happy, he’s been trying to get you to debut for years.”

“It’s just a feature for right now,” she smiled sheepishly.

“I do hope you continue,” he chuckled. “Should we get going. Glam?”

He seemed to tug her and she was a bit reluctant, but she followed him out.

“Do you need anything else, Mr. Han?” Jaehee asked. He looked up at Vivere, who shook her head, then he bowed slightly to dismiss her. She followed his father back down the hall, towards her desk, dropping her cup off before circling around them to escort them to the elevator as usual.

“This is much more serious than I thought,” Ms. Choi was saying. Jaehee had missed part of the conversation. “That girl is going to destroy Zen’s and Jumin’s career.”

Jaehee was sure that Chairman Han wasn’t listening to a thing Ms. Choi was saying either, as his response wasn’t to what she’d said at all.

“It seems Sujin has had a great impact on my son. I was sure that he was going to be angry when I told him I would be divorcing his step-mother. He isn’t particularly attached to her, I don’t believe, but—”

“Darling, are you listening to me? I’m talking about that Vivere.”

“Who is that?”

“Your son’s fiancée?”

“You mean Sujin? All of those kids go by some sort of alias these days. I always just call Sujin by her name. It’s much easier for me, especially since Jumin calls her ‘Sujin’ in conversation and her father refers to her by… well, he actually calls her ‘birdie’. Perhaps because she has a nice voice. I never thought about that before.”

“She’s going to record that song with them!”

“It’s nice isn’t it? It seems my son’s taste reflects mine more than I thought. His mother is a singer, did you know?”

“Yes, I know that, Han. Are you listening to me?”

“Of course I am.”

She sighed, deeply, and turned to Jaehee. “You understand, don’t you? You still have my information, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jaehee replied automatically.

“We have to find a way to make sure none of this succeeds for the sake of their careers.”

“Sujin is a good girl, I’m sure you don’t need to worry so much, Glam,” Chairman Han smiled. “I’m glad I have such a caring woman.”

There had to be a way to use this woman’s scheme against her. Chairman Han was as oblivious to what was happening as ever when there was a woman he wanted involved, and he’d done whatever he could to pull the wool over his own eyes, it seemed.

“Of course. I’ll contact you soon.”

When Jaehee was finished, Chairman Han’s eyes would be wide open.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not every song will get the 'traditional songfic' treatment, only ones that it's appropriate for.


	10. Overdramatic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which small rumors, old events, and petty feelings get exaggerated until they blow up in Viv's face and she tries to protect everyone else instead of help herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **{Overdramatic}** is inspired by Honey by L'arc-en-Ciel

_{overdramatic}_

_I thought we could be friends at first,  
Against my better judgement, accidently  
too trusting, you seemed so nice._ _  
Mystic messages in my phone (is that you?)_ _  
Each time I say no— you’re so persistent._  
_Can’t you just leave me alone?_

 _The words I sent were not meant for you_ _  
but you took them out of context, didn’t you?_ _  
you’re stupid if you think my route meanders_ _  
Good job, that phony story sounds nice_ _  
your fairy tales help you sleep at night?_  
_Can’t you just leave me out?_

_But your answer is always:_

_you’re just being dramatic, overdramatic_ _  
you’re just overreacting, extrapolating,_ _  
you’re just exaggerating, you’re so exasperating_  
_why don’t you just let go?_

 _A wizard with no magic,  
we don’t have a mystical attraction  
did you put yourself under a spell?_ _  
this isn’t a fucking fairytale_  
_This is an ‘a’ and ‘b’ conversation_  
_See your way out of it_

 _Call me a slut, so uncreative_ _  
call me a bitch, congrats:  
at least you’re not brainless _  
_But I won’t fuck you_  
_I will never fuck you_  
_Get my number out your phone_

_Stop being so—_

_you’re so dramatic, o-overdramatic_  
_you’re overreacting, extrapolating,_  
_you’re exaggerating, you’re so goddamn exasperating._  
_don’t you know I don’t care?_

_Can’t you see you’re—_

_being dramatic, so o-overdramatic_ _  
you’re overreacting, extrapolating,_ _  
you’re just exaggerating, you’re so exasperating!_  
_you’re fucking delusional_

 

Both Su and Jumin looked uncomfortable, Jihyun just sort of looked bored, and Rika had wandered off to the table with the younger members of the group. Mr. Han was engrossed in conversation with a woman who looked like she could be their older sister. It seemed casual enough, but he kept looking down her shirt and it was so obvious that it was kind of weird to watch.

Zen turned his attention to Mr. Park and Mr. Kim, who were engaged in some sort of discussion about music. Mr. Park was enthusiastic, some sort of expansion overseas as Mr. Kim’s business was mostly in Europe, and as much as he knew it from Jihyun’s descriptions of his father, Mr. Kim looked like he wasn’t listening one bit. It was just as odd watching Mr. Park happily chat away while Mr. Kim glanced around the room, mouth pressed in a straight line, eyes as cold as ice. It was a wonder that Jihyun was the total opposite, or perhaps it was because of it. Maybe it was because of his mom, but he wouldn’t know, they never talked about her.

The four of them didn’t dare speaking or even moving. Why had he come, anyway? Perhaps he was curious about the fiasco of C&R events the trio always complained about. When he glanced at Sujin, she mouthed an apology and he shook his head. At least the food was good. A free meal was a free meal, after all.

Jihyun nudged him and nodded towards some guy who was coming their way. He looked about their age, tailored suit and a shit-eating smile. Jumin also noticed him, sat up straighter in his chair and draped his arm over the back of Sujin’s in that protective thing he always did. What the hell was that about? He was clearly unwelcome with the way she tensed up. Zen instinctively did the opposite, lounging further back in his chair, taking on the rouse of being relaxed to make sure their new guest knew he wasn’t intimidated. Jihyun leaned towards the table, elbows leisurely supporting his chin in one hand.

“Good evening, Mr. Han, Mr. Park, Mr. Kim,” he acknowledged their fathers first, as proper, bowing. The three of them barely acknowledged him, the most was Mr. Park’s returned nod with the second-long pause of his talking. This seemed normal, though, as he turned his attention to the four of them without expecting a response. “The RFA is not performing tonight? A shame.”

“Not the right crowd,” Su shrugged, a fake smile spread her lips.

“I suppose that’s true,” he nodded, his gaze turning towards him. “You have Zen with you and you didn’t even introduce him.”

“How could we be so rude?” Jihyun’s voice sounded as sarcastic as it ever got, which wasn’t much, but it was there. “Zen, this is Dongwon. His family owns the theatre and several other arts related real estate. He’s got a thing for our Sujin.”

No wonder they got all protective of her all of a sudden. He couldn’t help the small laugh that puffed through his lips. Everyone knew Sujin and Jumin were a _thing_ even if neither of them would do something about it. “Way to introduce someone, Jihyun,” he replied, amused. “Hi, I’m Zen. Good to meet you. Mr. Lim must be your dad. I’m an actor at the—"

Arms crossed over his chest, head tilted up just enough to look condescending, he snapped. “I know who you are, I was being facetious.”

“Oh?” Jihyun quipped, somehow keeping that lighthearted voice about him. Zen wondered if this is what they had to do all the time to keep the peace with other rich people. Seemed like a hassle. “Have you seen any of Zen’s shows then?”

“Of course not, I have better things to do with my time. I only know of him from my father. He said Zen was hanging out with the producer’s daughter and her friends lately. I figured he was talking about you guys.”

Zen rose a silver eyebrow. This kid redefined his definition of stuck up. And he thought Jumin was terrible.

His attention turned to Zen at last instead of talking about him like he wasn’t there. “What are you doing here?”

“Surely you could be more polite to our guest than that,” Jihyun remanded him in the nicest way possible, mildly entertained in the way he usually was when people were being ridiculous for no reason. 

He huffed as if being a decent human was tiring to him. “Sorry. I’m not sure how else to phrase that.”

Only because Mr. Kim was obviously paying attention to their exchange, and he’d seen Mr. Park even pause his talking for a second, looking at Sujin in particular, Zen would play nice. Otherwise he’d ignored the kid and kept moving, or put him in his place.

“These guys are my friends and they asked me to come,” Zen shrugged, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. He knew it was almost impossible to be unassociated and at one of these parties, he wasn’t stupid. “I’m just here to hang out. Sujin and Jumin had that performance earlier, I hadn’t gotten to see them play before.”

“Nice, wasn’t it?” Jihyun clearly tried to steer the subject towards something neutral to talk about. “Su and I been talking about forming a European quartet for the next holiday party.”

“European?” his brows lifted.

“He’s referring to a piano quartet,” Su clarified. “It’s called a European quartet by some people because it’s a specific set of instruments used by European composers for chamber music that consists of a piano, violin, viola, and cello. The most notable would be Brahms?”

“Bach, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schumann,” Jumin waved a hand dismissively. “It was a popular form pre-1900.”

“I presume I’d be enlisted to play piano,” Zen shook his head.

“You’re the best pianist of the four of us, and that’s saying something because Jumin has awards for his playing. But he’s much better at the cello than the piano, in my humble opinion.”

“There’s nothing _humble_ about your opinion, Miss Concertmaster,” Jumin scoffed.

Dongwon cleared his throat to complain. “Every time I talk to you guys it’s always something about music. Don’t you guys do something else?”

“What else are we going to talk about? You don’t go to school with us.”

Jumin lifted his gaze to look at him. “You don’t need to be here if you don’t want.”

“I’m here because I wanted to meet Zen. My father has been gushing about him non-stop.” It sounded like he was pretty upset about it but that didn’t have anything to do with Zen. Maybe he should take it up with his dad.

“You’ve met him,” Jumin said in his normal, clipped manner of speaking. “Now, you may stay to talk with us or you may take your complaints elsewhere.”

“You know, I heard this guy is in a pretty bad way. No parents, poor, in a gang. We don’t associate with people like him,” he turned a hateful gaze at Zen. If this kid thought he was going to be intimidated just because he tried to stare down his nose at him, he had another thing coming.

Sujin, though, grinned that infuriating taunt that she got about her when she, well, he wasn’t sure yet why it showed up when it did since it didn’t show up when she was actually angry. In fact, he had been assured multiple times that he hadn’t seen her angry yet. He hadn’t been around them for that long, maybe a couple months, but he knew when she looked like that shit was about to get entertaining.

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, didn’t even bother to try to deny any of his claims. “So what? You mad, bro?”

Dongwon narrowed his eyes at her, smirking. “It’s not like I care who you hang out with, I just wanted to see why you brought him here. But I should have already figured it out: you’ve always got some charity case around.”

Zen heard Jumin warningly say her name, quietly, and watched her completely ignore him. All three parents stopped their conversations. Mr. Han’s mouth opened and Mr. Park’s head shook as if he knew the last thing he should do was get involved.

“You’re just jealous that Zen got that role when you didn’t,” she goaded. His smile vanished and he knew she saw it when her wicked grin somehow grew. “That’s right. Your dad won’t shut up about Zen ‘cause he’s the best actor our age and has more talent in his pinky than you have in your whole body. What’s it like to eat leftovers, big shot?”

“That’s not true. I gave up that role because I didn’t have time. I’m in a traveling performance troupe now!” He unraveled, rising to the bait, hands on his hips.

“That’s not what your dad said,” she laughed. “He told the whole orchestra pit, all three of us were there. He’s our Conductor, or did you forget? He felt sorry for you cause you bawled like a bitch for days and _paid_ for you to join that sorry excuse for a thespian society to get your whiney ass out the house on the weekends.”

“Father would never,” he swallowed, glanced around the table as if he only just now realized he had an audience. Ironic, that. “You’re lying.”

“Ask anyone in the orchestra. Come on, let’s go. There’s a least five more of us here.”

“I don’t need to, my father wouldn’t do that to me.”

She giggled, and it was maniacal. God, Zen hoped he never heard that sound directed at him. Dongwon seemed to steel himself, but it was apparent that he was going to only end up digging his grave deeper.

“Oh! I know what the problem is. You know the majority of the violin section are girls, and you’ve tried to ask out every girl in the orchestra. Sort of awkward, huh? Why would they advocate for you when you’ve harassed them?”

“You’re grasping at straws.”

“Am I? We both know Zen could have any girl in this room that he wanted. You haven’t been able to get a girlfriend since Heidi dumped you last year. He’s gorgeous _and_ charismatic. What are you? A sleaze? Ask daddy for money so you can buy a girlfriend like he bought your spot in the theatre?”

Dongwon became as red as a tomato, anger and embarrassment on his face. That’s what the whole thing was about. He was insecure with himself and despised him because he was handsome. What else was new? Zen sighed. Making friends was hard when people don’t even try to get to know him and created a picture of him as this horrible person because of his face.

Sujin, though, laughed.

“Sujin,” Jumin warned again, tugging at her. Zen looked at Jihyun, who had placed a hand over his mouth. He nudged him, and Jihyun’s head shook.

“He should have never tried to go after you,” Jihyun whispered, not taking his eyes off of her. “He’s been asking her out for months, but she’s never really paid him attention and he thought his only competition was Jumin, but he’s not stupid enough to try to take him on. He came over here because he thought you were her boyfriend or something. I’d guess he thought he could pick a fight with you and get you to hit him so he could prove your delinquency and make Su not like you.”

That explained a lot, actually.

When she stood up, he stepped back. A foot shorter and Dongwon still seemed to shrink when she followed him. It was something about the way she carried herself, the way her face didn’t look angry. She looked as if she was enjoying every moment of tearing him apart.

“Who are you other than a toilet for your daddy to flush his money down, hm?” Her head tilted, voice patronizing. “Zen is pragmatic, resourceful, talented, and tenacious. He’s so much more than a pretty face. But you don’t even have that, do you? Your mom’s so pretty, too, such a shame.”

He stepped back. She stepped forward.

“I know why you’re here. You want _me_. But that would just make you a _charity case_.”

Dongwon gawked at her. His eyes widened. He looked like someone who had never been wrung quite so thoroughly before. His hands clenched at his sides, shaking. His lip quivered. His skin was almost purple he was so inflamed. Then his head shook, he bit his lip to close his mouth.

“Sujin, I’m sorry I insulted your friend, I just— I thought— I wanted to—”

“ _We don’t associate with people like you_ ,” she parroted back at him.

And then Jihyun smirked and glanced his way with a quirked eyebrow to say, “Game, set, match.”

Zen couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

He heard it before he saw it, the screech of Jumin’s chair on the marble tile when he stood up and wrapped an arm around her to pull her back to his chest just as the other guy reached forward to try to grab her. Dude sucked in a breath and snapped his gaze up to Jumin as if he was ready for a fight and Jumin just shoved Su behind him and got this look on his face that _dared_ him to do something, anything. Zen thought about standing up himself, but he figured it was a bad idea since Dongwon was trying to target him in the first place, he’d probably claim he was gangster and threatened him then try to slap him with a lawsuit.

Mr. Kim was the one who broke the silence, the first time he’d heard the man talk all evening. “I see she made herself clear,” he drawled, sharp features directing his attention briefly to Dongwon.

He spun on his heel and practically ran away, likely off to tell his dad that Suji and her friends hurt his feelings or whatever. For a moment he worried he might get fired, but considering the way Dongwon talked about it, that wasn’t even a possibility. Even so, as much as he hated depending on people and especially these guys because of their money, he knew they wouldn’t just let him go hungry.

Zen watched Sujin push Jumin in the shoulder with a pout, while he kept his eye on Dongwon until he was far enough away for him to relax. His eyes narrowed at her as if he was upset as she plopped back into her seat. His expression relaxed after he finally sat and draped his arm over the back of her chair. She promptly pushed his arm off, making him almost fall. The only sound from either of them during the whole exchange was the tiny squeak of pain she made when he pinched her arm in retaliation, at which she shoved him a little harder, and it seemed he knew exactly where to poke one finger right under the side of her ribcage to make her double over with the only kind of legal torture: tickling.

“How did you of all people raise such a vicious little thing?” Mr. Kim smiled ever so slightly, eyes sliding to look at Mr. Park. You’d think Jumin was his child with the way his demeanor was similar. Zen heard Jumin took after his mother.

“I am quite sure Sujin raised me,” Mr. Park quipped with a proud smile. “She kicked my ass when she was eight and—”

“We were there, Daesuk,” Mr. Kim pat his shoulder before he launched into a story, unfortunately, as Zen hadn’t heard it. He could imagine it, if she was as feisty then as she is now. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to try to send her to law school?” Mr. Han rose an eyebrow at his friend, who shook his head.

“My girl has music in her blood. I have to admit she’d dominate a courtroom, though.”

“Such a dramatic child. Gunwoo needs to stop babying that boy before he gets himself into real trouble,” Mr. Kim huffed. “Hopefully the shame of his theatrics will make him get his act together. He’s too old to be throwing tantrums.”

“Should I speak with him?” Mr. Park worried.

“If he didn’t see this fiasco he surely will hear of it,” Mr. Han shrugged. “Though I suppose hearing of it from that boy first may make him upset with Sujin.”

“No way, we don’t want you to get involved,” Suji interjected herself into the conversation. “It’ll ruin my reputation if you sweep in and try to fix things. I’ve already got these two constantly hovering over my shoulder. I’ll ask you if I need you to do something. Besides, if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll get his shit together before he starts trying to insult my friends—”

“ _Sujin_ , mind your language,” Mr. Park fussed, but laughed anyway. She rolled her eyes. “I’ll let you take care of it, then, my little meadowlark.” He reached over to pat her head, which she groaned and dodged. “Don’t worry, Zen. We’ll make sure no one threatens your job over a silly crush.”

It didn’t look like just a crush to him, but maybe he was just trying to diffuse the situation.

“As rude as it would be, I think it would best for us to bow out for the evening, considering…” Jihyun suggested, glancing at Zen. “I’d hate for another confrontation to happen. Some guys don’t react well to their pride being bruised.”

“Why don’t we go to karaoke?” Su instantly brightened with the idea.

It was odd, but it seemed like Mr. Kim had the last say, as the other two fathers looked to him. Perhaps it was because it was his son who asked, or maybe he was the one who cared the most. Zen wasn’t sure. After a long moment of staring Jihyun down, he nodded to his son. “Don’t miss curfew.”

“Thank you!” Sujin hopped up from her chair and clapped her hands together with a little sound of glee. Both Jihyun and Jumin smiled with her excitement, and she bent down to give Mr. Kim a hug. He awkwardly pat her arm and chuckled so quietly that Zen almost didn’t hear it before she quickly let him go and she bounced over to the other table to grab Rika, Yoosung, and the twins. By time he had stood, and said his polite ‘goodbye’s and ‘thank you’s to the three fathers at their table, she’d returned.

“I’ve already messaged Driver Kim,” Jumin informed her, and simultaneously everyone else.

“Thanks, Juju.”

Zen watched the bustle happen around him. Jumin and Jihyun helped the girls into their coats with practiced ease while the rest of them shrugged into their own. Jihyun took Rika’s hand in his, apologizing softly for being unable to sit with her during dinner and she telling him it was fine, she knew how things needed to be. Jumin bent down to whisper something in Su’s ear, her response being an elbow to the stomach that couldn’t have been that hard because he barely flinched, but laughed. It was strange to see the guy smile, he only did so like that around her.

Saeyoung and Saeran pulled her from Jumin, who only watched as Saeyoung wrapped her arm through his and she forced Saeran into giving her his arm. Saeyoung was just as excited as she was, and they bounced together while Saeran looked as if he could kill both of them. Yoosung was talking to his cousin and Jihyun. Behind him, the three fathers were talking among themselves, Mr. Han apologizing for the scene to the young woman he was trying very hard to flirt with, Mr. Kim was talking about some sort of business statistics while Mr. Park nodded emphatically.

He heard his name, brought his attention to the voice that said it. Suji grinned at him from over her shoulder.

“Let’s pick something to sing together.”

At first, he didn’t know whether these were his kind of people. They lived in a totally different world than him, he thought, wanted different things out of life than him. He’d been through things that he knew they couldn’t relate to. He’d rejected any idea of being their friends at first, was only there because Rika and Jihyun came to every one of his shows and pretty much dragged him into this circle of friends. He found, often, that he was wrong.

Zen smiled. Su wrestled herself away from the two red-heads and allowed him to drop an arm over shoulders, following the two oldest out the door.

“I know just the song.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Heavy knocking at her door woke Viv up from where she had fell asleep on the couch in the middle of a pile of sheet music. Quickly, she shuffled into sweats, hopping on one foot too the door yelling, “Just a minute, I’m not decent!” The thudding knocking repeated, shaking her in her skin. It seemed like it made her whole wall rattle. Finally she got into her sweatshirt and opened the door to find an angry looking man at her door.

“Sujin Park?”

“Y-yes?”

“I am Officer Tom Jung. I have a warrant to search your home for drugs and drug paraphernalia. You will be subject to a drug test by your employer.”

“Uh… ok.”

Vivere stepped aside to allow the three police officers in her home, watching them as they began to walk around to each room. She could only watch them nervously, keeping quiet for the time being. Each of them confirmed to the others that there was no one else in the condo, and came back to hand her a piece of paper. The copy of the search warrant.

The three officers looked around for a long moment.

“I need a form of identification.”

“I, um, have to get my wallet from my purse.” Thankfully her purse was hanging on its hook near the door anyway, and she turned to it to take her wallet and hand off her ID.

The officer didn’t say anything else, on his radio for some time and doing something with her ID.

“Could someone tell me why you’re here?” she asked, once he’d put the radio away, feeling like it was a hazard to do so.

“We have reasonable cause to believe that you regularly partake in drugs, Miss Park. It would be helpful if you would cooperate and this can go smoothly.”

“I— of course, I just… don’t understand why this is happening.” She tucked her wallet into her sweatshirt pocket. It seemed like a bad idea to walk away at this point.

“We’ll start in the kitchen. I will ask you a few questions while Officer Winn and Officer Mun search the kitchen. If anything is locked, they will ask for it to be unlocked. Is there someone else living with you?”

“No, I live alone…”

She followed him into her kitchen and the officer invited her to sit at the island counter, taking a pen and notebook out from his breast pocket. “Oh! The wine cabinet is built in, that latticing doesn’t come out,” she told them as one of the officers had emptied her wine cabinet and was tugging on the slats. The other was taking all her appliances out of the cabinets and setting them out on the floor and counters. She didn’t have many besides normal cookware, just the stuff her friends and family had gotten her when she’d gotten the place: a hot pot, a slow cooker, blender, food processor, rice cooker – things of that sort.

“What’s a girl your age doing living alone?” Jung scoffed, brows raising and handing back her ID. “You should be living with your parents until you’re married.”

So he was conservative, or he was just pushing her buttons by being an ass. Either one, she didn’t really like it, but over reacting would make the situation a thousand times worse, and she tried to muster all the ‘training’ she’d had being at work with difficult executives and clients to stay calm and mild. Viv just couldn’t imagine what sort of evidence they would have that she would use drugs. The whole thing was baffling to her. They would have had to petition a judge to get a warrant, right? She looked down at the paper, frowning.

“My father’s condo is only a few blocks away, and I’m really here because my family’s estate is an hour outside of the city by car in good traffic,” she shrugged, tried to make the answer seem as obvious as possible. “It was just more economical to live closer to work when all the numbers were sorted.”

“And where do you work, young lady?”

“Ars Moriendi, the entertainment production company. I typically go by Vivere. I… mostly write music for artists under the label, among other things.”

“Vivere…” he seemed to contemplate her a moment, staring her down with this stern, unyielding stare. “Daesuk Park’s daughter, Jumin Han’s fiancée, and member of Carpe Diem, a degenerate rock group.”

“I-I’m not really a member of Carpe Diem, I’m their manager and songwriter,” she clarified. Would he hold it against her that he didn’t like rock music? Did he just see the way they dressed and presumed they were a demonic cult or something?

“Nothing here,” one of the other officers called out. “Let’s go to the next room.”

Jung held out a hand to direct her to go ahead of them, and they were back in the living room. One of them took something out of their pocket – a small knife. Viv paled as he cut open the back of her couch. She got that it was a place where it was ‘likely’ she could stash something, but did they have to destroy it?

“Can I at least move the paper out of the way? It’s just sheet music, I need it for work.”

“Fine. Winn, allow her to get her work off the couch.”

“Right.”

Viv hurried over and quickly shuffled the papers together, not bothering to attempt to put them in order, and dragged her keyboard away from the end of the couch, and turned to place the stack of papers on the piano bench.

“For a young lady with an immense amount of wealth, you don’t have many possessions,” Officer Jung said with a tone of mockery, trying to open the top of her grand piano.

“Most of my stuff is at the family estate,” she tried not to push the officer to the side, but she helped open the piano properly, so that it wouldn’t be scratched or the strings pulled out of tune, turning around to watch the other two officers open her cd and stereo cabinets and pull open her speakers to look inside them while the officer shone his flashlight inside the piano. That was a few thousand dollars destroyed. Couldn’t they have told her to take it apart? “I don’t spend a whole lot of time here.”

“What _do_ you spend your money on?”

It was an invasive question, but it wasn’t as if she could refuse to answer it. “Primarily clothing and collectable instruments. And I make saving a priority.”

“Do you now?” he sounded like he doubted her, opened all the drawers in the small side table that she kept notation paper and pencils along with other household, ‘junk’ useful items like a pair of scissors and rubber bands and a roll of tape, tossed the items around one by one. “If we looked at your bank accounts, you’d be able to account for all your purchases, then?”

“Well, I suppose I could? A bank statement would already tell you where something is going. I don’t carry much cash these days. Maybe enough for a cab or to pay for lunch, but most of the time places take cards now. I try to remember to keep receipts for my accountant but the fish-shaped bread stall at the corner doesn’t give receipts.”

Anxiety crawled up her throat. He really seemed to think she actually did drugs. Guilty until proven innocent and all that.

“I wouldn’t think that the young woman marrying _the_ Jumin Han would care much about saving money,” he scoffed, directing the other officers into her bedroom. They looked around for a moment, began stripping her bedding off of her bed. Pillows were squished, one of them was ripped open. They left the mattress alone, she guessed nothing about it looked suspicious, but they cut open the box spring and set it against one wall. Viv sighed. Did she seriously need to buy a new bed now?

“I just believe a woman’s financial independence is important for her own safety— husband or no. It has nothing to do with him. It has to do with one’s ability to get themselves out of dangerous situations if need be. It’ll be even more important once we have children.”

She frowned, watching one of the officers dumping her drawers out onto the floor and where the box spring used to be. The other officer quickly shifted through her clothes. Makeup was opened, just tossed on the floor, too. A couple compacts broke and spilled colored powders on the white decorative carpet beneath her bed that would likely never wash out. Her bedside tables riffled through, important documents thrown on the floor and stepped on.

“You sound like a sensible one, and yet this is happening to you,” he waved his hand at the mess they’d made in her home. “Apparently you’re doing something wrong.”

“I have no idea what this about, I don’t know how to convince you,” she repeated, trying to keep herself calm and not just scream at the officers, nerves fraying. They weren’t going to tell her a word more than they needed to. She guessed if they’ve already decided she has them, then they expected her to say exactly that. “I’ve never touched drugs even when I could. Watching my father destroy everything he’d worked for, his health deteriorate, and driving my mother away was more than enough to deter me. I am still afraid of walking into his place and finding him dead, so being accused of using drugs is so crazy to me that— just, could you _please_ tell me what’s going on—”

“Since you have been cooperating, I will assume you are telling the truth for the time being,” he seemed to conclude, the three officers moving to the next room. It was a guest room that only had a bed, completely dressed and accumulating dust since she hadn’t had someone stay over in such a long time, along with an empty small chest of drawers and an empty bedside table, a small lamp.

Her closet was next, which wasn’t completely packed because she often took fancier designer pieces she’d already worn to the estate and only kept things she hadn’t worn yet. If she was seen at a C&R event in a dress she’d worn before, her family would be the laughing stock of the bourgeoisie. The rest of it was a curated collection of various high end ready-to-wear. There was a clear split between her clothing, stuff she wore to work, which was a rack of various neutral colored dresses and suits, and her casual wear, which mainly consisted of sweater dresses, sweatshirts designed to be worn like a dress, and lace pieces. The last wall were shelves of shoes, which had the most variety among her closet, and a shelf of designer purses. She wasn’t the person who cared much about purses, but she at least had the basics to match her outfits.

In the middle of the closet there was a small island, similar to a kitchen island, but more designed like a jewelry store shelf. Like everything else, she didn’t keep the vast majority of her things here, but what she had with her were the things that were the most important to her. In order to prevent more destruction of her property, she headed inside herself and began to take things apart to they could be easily put back in place.

“This was more what I was expecting from a little rich girl’s home,” scoffed one of the other officers, traveling to the back of the closet and starting with searching inside each pair of shoes.

She sighed and ignored the comment, lifting out the organizers from the jewelry drawers and laying them out on top of the case, then leaving each drawer open. Not all of the drawers had things in them, only the first few tiers. “The rest of this thing is empty, I don’t wear much jewelry since it gets in the way while I’m working. There’s a door back there that goes to the bathroom.”

Viv figured even if she asked them not to rip up anything it would instigate them to rip up even more. Even one of the t-shirts cost a few hundred dollars, so Viv decided to say nothing. Hopefully they would get bored checking pockets and just move on.

“Could you please tell me why I am under some sort of investigation?” she asked Officer Jung again, who was obviously the one in charge.

“You must not pay much attention to the news,” his head shook, and he at last pulled out what looked like his personal phone, fingers moving over the glass for a moment before turning the screen around for her to look at.

_Like Father, Like Daughter: Is Sujin Park a Drug Addict?_

She put her hand over her mouth before she cursed.

The article detailed a bunch of reasons, all pure speculation and completely not true, why she could be doing drugs. It’s main point was rehashing the most public events in which her father was sick from drug overdose, pointing out that addiction is, according to researchers a combination of environment and genes, and claimed it was enough reason to believe she could be, since not only she had her father’s blood, she had been exposed to addictive substances since she was a child.

“We also were sent an anonymous tip that you were seen under the influence at a party.”

Her mouth opened, but she had nothing to say. She was in complete and utter shock. She could be put in jail for possession because of a tabloid and an anonymous tip? Would someone really stoop so low because they wanted her fiancée? And her father… he’d been sober for fifteen years. Why bring up his drug use now? How does this kind of logic apply?

“Nothing to say?” the officer snickered.

She had a lot to say, just not to him.

“No, no, I don’t. Can I call my father? I want to make sure he’s ok.”

 

***

 

There was so much bad energy in the air that it made even Zen’s nerves sit upright, like he was some animal and he’d puffed all his hair up to look bigger than he was. Viv was the opposite, withdrawing more than usual, a turtle inside her shell. The first thing that happened were bodyguards, but the three of them still kept her between them, usually one of them with an arm over her shoulder. Yoosung had turned out to be the most protective of the three of them, keeping her in front of him at all times and a wary eye out for cameras.

So now, the four of them squished onto one couch for an interview, Viv was between Seven and Yoosung with Seven’s arm over her shoulder. Zen deliberately sat on the arm of the chair, almost standing up, able to look intimidating or interrupt the interview at any time if the questions became to invasive or if the reporter was rude and pushed too hard. The interviewer, James, had his eye on her.

“I get this is probably uncomfortable for all of you, but we have to address the elephant in the room.” He looked up at Zen who narrowed his eyes at the man. “What’s the deal with Zen and Viv’s relationship?”

Seven laughed. “I thought that was old news, dude. She’s obviously with me now.”

Vivere frowned and lightly smacked the arm that was around her neck. “Seven, don’t be a shit-stirrer.”

“Mean Vivi,” Seven clicked his tongue at her.

“Come on, Seven, Viv’s had it hard lately, you can play games later,” Yoosung admonished, frowning at Seven before turning his attention to James. “He’s joking.”

“Yeah,” smirked Zen, crossing his arms over his chest. If they didn’t make this entertaining for the network, they would cut up the interview to feed even further into the ‘controversy’. “Besides, she’d totally still be with me if we were ever together. No woman would be crazy enough to break up with me.”

“Even for Jumin Han?” James rose a brow, lips spreading while attempting not to laugh.

“I am _clearly_ the better choice out of myself and that prick,” Zen shrugged. He heard Vivere laugh. That was good. For some reason the whole pretend feud Zen had going with Jumin was funny to her.

She rose her hands in defeat. “I have absolutely nothing to say to that. I don’t think anyone can convince Zen otherwise.”

“What, do you mean you like him better?” he narrowed his eyes at her but had a hard time not cracking a smile.

“Zen, it’s not you, it’s me,” she tried to make herself look apologetic, but she was a poor liar.

“Stop it, Zen, you’re making things worse,” Yoosung frowned up at him.

“Pup, I’m just fine,” she gently pat Yoosung’s head and he frowned at her.

“I’m not a puppy.”

“Well,” James looked down at a card, seeming to put things back on track. “There’s a lot of speculation, from the tabloids, random pictures of you on the internet, to the fact that you don’t wear that quite famous engagement ring, Vivere.”

“I do wear it,” first her head tilted, then her hand touched the ring hanging from her neck on a chain. “It’s right here. Some people can play the guitar with rings on just fine, they get used to it, or they learned with them on. I just can’t wear rings when I’m playing, so I put it on this chain and wear it like a pendant instead.”

“Understandable. However, there are many times you aren’t wearing a necklace,” he brows rose at her.

“It’s a bunch of legal stuff, actually. When I perform, because of the money production puts into the branding of the stuff we wear, so I’d be inadvertently advertising a company not approved by the broadcasting studio and… it’s a conflict of interest… so they make me hide it. So we don’t risk it. But it’s just tucked into my shirt. I always have it on me, even if you can’t see it. Honestly, that’s one of the reasons we got matching tattoos.”

“You’ve got _what?”_

“Matching tats, dude,” Zen scoffed. “Jumin has a feather on the side of his left hand and she’s got a wing on her right wrist.” He pulled out his phone to pull up a picture of them holding hands and zoomed in until you can see it, handing it off his phone to the interviewer.

“I didn’t know you had a picture of it. I don’t even have a picture of it,” she turned her hand to look at her wrist. “Send that to me?”

“Sure thing.”

“Why a feather and a wing? How does this match, exactly? Shouldn’t there be two of the same thing?”

“It wouldn’t be poetic that way, obviously,” Zen’s arm crossed over his chest. “Jumin calls Viv his ‘angel’.”

Seven laughed. “Dude.”

With a shrug Zen smirked. “Hey, I’m a romantic. I thought it was a great idea. Once I find my girl we’re going to get tats like that, too.”

“I want to do that too!” Yoosung chimed in. “Rings are so impersonal. This is like, specific to them without getting something stupid like their name written on you or something, that’s just bad luck. To me it seems like he’s acknowledging how important she is to him. Though, your hand? That’s a bit…”

She laughed, hand over her mouth. “I know, I said so, too, but when my tattoo artist showed us the design, Jumin liked it so much he refused to change it.”

“That’s one large rumor debunked, right here on G!Weekly, folks! Mind if we get a close up of it? And a good look at that tattoo?”

“Uh, no, go ahead,” she moved her hand from her chest and let the ring rest against her chest without obstruction. Her black top made it easy to see when the camera zoomed in on it. It was definitely the same ring that was in Seven’s video, and the one she’d been seen wearing in public. Then she pushed up her sleeve and held out her hand, turned so that they could get a good picture of the delicate drawing on her wrist.

“So who was that girl, Sarah Choi?, that Jumin was supposedly engaged to?”

“Dude, I thought this was an interview about Carpe Diem, who cares about that bull?” Zen scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest in fake indignance. Good thing he was a great actor.

“You’re right, let’s move on then.”

Vivere looked up at him, and flashed him a grateful smile. Zen returned it.

“Obviously, we have to ask about the whole drug abuse thing, right?” James couldn’t seem to contain his enthusiasm even though he was attempting to keep his face neutral, still staring Viv down. She frowned and Seven held her shoulders a little tighter.

“That’s really not a fair question,” Yoosung interrupted, sounding slightly worried. “It was a completely speculative piece that brought Viv a lot of problems.”

“Wouldn’t clearing it up help close some of those problems, though?” retorted the reporter, leaning forward to challenge Yoosung.

Seven shrugged. “Everything that was said about Mr. Park was true, he didn’t even attempt to deny it when he was asked about it. He even said he wouldn’t be fifteen years sober if it wasn’t for her. What is interrogating Viv about it further going to do? Give you something else to talk about?”

“That’s right,” James nodded with a bit of a nasty grin. “It’s the question everyone wants answered, and they want it from her mouth. We provide it, we get better ratings. You know how this thing works.”

Zen’s crossed arms tightened, spying Viv press fingers into her forehead in an attempt to soothe a headache.

Then, in that exasperated, mild voice of hers she said, “I don’t do drugs.”

“That’s not exactly a satisfactory explanation, you know, no one is going to believe that.”

“I know that, and that’s exactly the point. No one is going to believe me, they’re going to believe what they want to believe. There’s no reason anyone would know this, but drugs terrify me. My uncle did as much as he could to keep me out of the media when all that was going on, but I was the one who found him almost dead after a drug overdose when I was eight. I’ve been afraid of them ever since. There’s no way I would ever even touch a cigarette.”

“Well, he does have lung cancer now, right?”

“He’s in remission, but yes.”

It didn’t occur to him before, but it must be the reason she was always trying to find and throw away his cigarettes. She often said it was because he would destroy his voice, or that his skin would deteriorate. Both true, but moreso, she was trying to protect him from a fate she’d seen created that could have been avoided.

Man, did he feel like a dick.

Zen’s head shook, then looked James square in the eye. “She’s done talking about this.”

“Viv, are you ok?” Yoosung asked as James switched to the next card, finally seeming to take his attention from her, taking her hand and wrapped her arm through his. “This has to be hard to talk about.”

That made her smile, and she in turn hugged his arm against her a bit. “I have you guys, so it’s a lot easier.”

 

***

 

Finally, they were alone. It wasn’t the ideal place, they were still at the television broadcasting studio as she had some sort of interview and then an afterparty, and they had no idea where the rest of the CD members were but they were actually supposed to be waiting here with her. He had just ‘shown up’ and demanded he be able to join her despite the fact that only staff was supposed to be in these waiting rooms. A lot of the time the studios recorded what was happening in these lobby-type areas, meant for the viewers to get a better view of their favorite stars ‘behind-the-scenes’.

To be quite honest, he couldn’t care less about propriety anymore. Too much had happened.

“I’ve missed you,” he pushed hair away from her face, used the hand to lift her chin to him, to kiss her again. “Six days apart is much too long.”

“It is,” she agreed, her fingers threading through his hair. He hummed softly to reward the contact.

“My love,” Jumin laid his lips to her neck, speaking playfully, smiling. “You’ve neglected me,” At the front of her throat, three kisses in a trail from beneath her chin to the dip of her collarbone.

She allowed her head to fall back into the cusp of his hand that was buried in her hair, shook it slightly. “Jumin, the cameras might be on—“

“Then I will simply show the world my love for you, over and over until they understand.”

Viv sighed, a deep breath that was pulled in slowly, released with care. “I’m just so grateful you aren’t upset.”

“Upset? Su, you were wronged and I will fight tooth and nail until it’s corrected.”

“But your reputation—"

“I trust you.”

Viv shuddered, the kind of shaking that was born of fear and worry that she’d been hiding and not from what it should be from – him touching her, kissing her. He pulled her closer, brought her head to his shoulder and she curled her legs over his lap, one foot hooking behind his calf. While he felt like he needed to rectify the issue of the lack of intimacy for the past week, it was more important for her to feel safe. The other things could come later, after.

“You have to leave me, Juju—”

“—absolutely not.”

“I can even go to jail and—”

“—nothing is going to happen, there’s no evidence to—”

“—the media doesn’t care about that.”

“The media doesn’t determine—"

“They got a _warrant_ because of a tabloid!”

“Which is utterly absurd.”

“I have to leave CD and—”

“—stop! Stop.”

She did, thankfully, he didn’t want her to spiral into a panic attack. They happened so rarely these days, and he’d like to do his part to keep it that way— continuing to argue was a poor contribution to her well-being. She took another deep breath, he felt her hands squeeze his arm. He was good at being patient, waited until she lifted her eyes to his without prompting her to do so, didn’t make her release him even as her grip was a little too tight.

“We are not going to bicker about this,” he told her, taking a stern, but quiet tone. “I love you, Sujin.”

“But—”

“Tell me.”

“I love you,” she said, and perhaps for the first time outside of a song it felt like she was pouring out her soul.

There was only one thing to do in that case. “Then, don’t let go.”

Another deep breath, her teeth grabbed on her lip and gnawed, her eyes clenched closed, her hands grasped even tighter but he didn’t care if he bruised. The exhale was slow, like the tempo of a ballad. He paid more attention to it than he probably should have, likely making her even more stressed. Silently, he willed her to inhale again, to not let herself fall into holding her breath, and breathed deep with her when he felt her chest expand. Then her eyes opened, a bit clearer despite shining a bit too wet, she smiled a bit self-depreciatingly.

“We’re going to make it through this,” he assured her, breaking the long silence, using their position to bring their lips together. He was gentle, like trying to pass calm and determination from him to her – not because she needed it but because he felt she needed to know he had it. “I’ve waited my whole life to love you, Suji.”

“I can’t bear the thought of hurting you,” she confided. “I’d rather watch from afar and see you happy than—”

“—you are my happiness, Su. You’re my heart and soul.”

“Ugh, you’re embarrassing,” she laughed, and god was he glad to hear it. It shimmered along his skin, warmed him.

“Ah,” he breathed, smiled for her. “There you are.”

“I’m sorry, I just—”

“—you’re fine,” he dismissed the apology, not wanting to hear it. Why should she apologize for trying to protect him and their friends? Becoming so stressed that she would induce panic attacks? Why would he accept an apology for that? He felt like he should be apologizing to her for making her worry about him so much. He could be doing more to prevent things from getting out of control like they had. He should be doing more. “We’re fine.”

She nodded, sighed. “I wish all of this would end. I’m so tired. I just want things to go back to normal.”

He thought he might need to apologize for that, since if it weren’t for him she would have the quiet, unassuming life that she wanted. Except he wasn’t sorry for pushing her towards the stage, he could never be sorry for who he was or the position he was in, and he would never be sorry for choosing her as his wife.

All these apologies were going to get them nowhere. There had to be a solution to all this that they hadn’t thought about yet.

“I wonder if the prospect of our engagement being broken is what drives this sort of retaliation. Would it stop if we were already married?” he mused aloud, combing fingers through her hair while she curled further into him.

“I can’t imagine any other reason for this to keep going on like it is,” she said, muffled by her face pressed into his chest.

He remembered when Jihyun made a suggestion to him and wondered for a second if he should have listened back then. “Let’s elope.”

She gasped, the exact reaction he expected, and smiled down at her as innocently as he could at his own jest. She looked up in shock, mouth open, eyes wide. “You would never!”

“I wouldn’t, but we should set a date. Sooner than later. ”

It seemed as if she was trying to read his face, eyes flickering back and forth rapidly. “What were you thinking?”

He hummed. He hadn’t gotten that far. The new year was a special time for all of them, but right before it was— “Christmas? It would be quite romantic.”

“Jumin, that’s less than a _month_ , there’s absolutely no way!” She pulled away, her hands on his chest, but she was smiling. “Besides, what about the year—”

“—as you can surely tell, I’d rather not wait that long,” he chuckled when she lightly smacked her hand against his chest. “New Years?”

“Oh my god.”

“Valentine’s day.”

“Two and a half months. You’re kidding right?”

“I’m not.”

He wasn’t.

She pressed her hands to her face, thinking about it. Viv did this sometimes, especially when she was overwhelmed. It was likely that she was debating over the more ‘appropriate’ timing and his attempt to rush them in her mind. Despite it being a strategy to stop problems from continuing to escalate, he was strangely attracted to the idea. What did they need to wait the entire year for? They knew each other inside-out, loved each other more than life itself. It didn’t make sense to wait simply for the sake of it.

“Is that even possible?”

Jumin laughed. “With enough money anything is possible.”

“You’re insufferable sometimes, don’t you know that?”

“I do,” he grinned and he felt her shuffle her feet against his legs.

“Even after everything you still want to marry me?” Viv’s face became… apologetic, it seemed. This disbelief in the way her smile changed. “I’m not—”

“—yes,” he cut her off, before she could spiral again. “Suji, I told you—”

“I know, but—”

“—then—”

“Okay! Okay. I’m not getting rid of you, am I? God dammit.”

He clicked his tongue at her to scold her. She seemed to relax, a real smile coming to her lips as she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck and draw him down to her. Jumin kissed her until she was breathless, until his chest burned, until she worriedly pushed at him only enough that he chuckled and continued his affectionate onslaught.

“And here I thought you were determined to make me miserable,” he grinned slyly, attempting to fix the lipstick he’d smeared over her chin with a thumb.

“I haven’t accomplished that yet?” she laughed, his head shook ‘no’, rubbing their noses together. “It’s more difficult than I thought.”

“I suppose you’ll have to stay with me until I am thoroughly despondent.”

“How long do you think that’ll take?”

“Oh, at this rate?” he hummed, pretending to think it over. “Lifetimes, I’m sure.”

“Yeesh,” her head shook, a grin forming on her lips. “Wish me luck!”

“Do your best, my love.”

 

***

 

“Honestly, I didn’t expect to see you so soon. You’ve been busy getting into trouble.”

Viv shrugged, wiggled her feet in anticipation as Unknown prepared the transfer of the tattoo he’d been working on for her. He pulled out a disposable razor and started shaving her thigh. “Trouble follows me these days.”

“You’re a masochist.”

“Well, I guess you would be the one to know.”

“Have you told him?”

“No way.”

“Too bad. I bet Jumin would be into it.”

“You really think so?”

“The man has some kinks, I’m sure of it.”

Viv shook her head at the playful teasing. “How have you been?”

“You could have just called if you wanted to check in on me, or asked Seven.” He wiped down her leg with a couple of alcohol swabs and washed his hands, then turned back to his desk while he waited for her skin to dry.

“I don’t have time like that to just fuck off,” she laughed.

He took the moment to push a headband into place to keep his pink-tipped white bangs out of his eyes, then brought over the transfer and placed it on her thigh. He smoothed it down to make sure the entire paper had connected with her skin before leaning back in his chair to look at her, waiting for the ink to stain.

Unknown scoffed, giving her a disbelieving look. “So you just happened to find time to fuck off and get a tattoo?”

“I mean, when you said it was finished, I got excited.”

“I don’t blame you. My work is sick. I do like this one in particular.”

“It is,” she agreed.

“How’s Yoosung?”

“He’s ok,” she looked down at her leg as he lifted the transfer and checked the design against the original. “Getting better, I think. He’s been handling publicity pretty well, too, you know, with the whole thing.” She waved a hand, indicating the scandals revolving around the group. “Don’t you talk to him, like, everyday?”

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t exactly tell me everything. He’s been worried sick about you, though.”

“Sorry.”

“You know you’re a hypocrite, right?”

“What?”

“You keep apologizing for shit that isn’t your fault, but always telling everyone else not to.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, I do, don’t I?”

“How are you handling that fuckery, anyway?” He leaned forward to get a good look at her face, red brows raised as if he was daring her to lie. “Do you need anything?”

Viv couldn’t help but blush from embarrassment. Not only was one of the boys she considered a little brother taking care of her instead, but he knew her well enough that he could anticipate her usual answer. She had to be honest or he’d rip her a new one. While he was capable of being the sweetest guy you’d ever meet, he could also be vicious if he wanted. Two sides of the same coin, as if there were two totally different people living in that body. But that was true for everyone, right?

“It’s sucked but our lawyer has been on it, and Jumin got my stuff replaced within 48 hours. Work drug tested me and when the test came out clear Kenji arranged a small press release. I still get kind of freaked out when I see police and people have been treating me weird... But, I’m ok otherwise.”

“Alright, but if you need something, call me. Besides, we haven’t hung out in too long. And I’m not talking about finishing this tat, either.” He stared sternly at her for a moment making her squirm in the chair uncomfortably. Then, Unknown graced her with a rare, genuine smile before pushing her with his elbow out of his chair. “Go check.”

She’d gotten enough work done by him to know he meant the placement of the tattoo. The way she had rolled up her shorts forced her to hobble over to the full length mirror, comparing the two thigh tattoos and their relationship to each other.

“I think it looks good,” he said, peering at the mirror from his chair.

“Yeah I like that it’s a bit lower than the other one.”

“Let’s get started. The outline is going to be a least a six-hour job alone. You always want such intricate shit.”

Viv climbed back onto the modified dentist’s chair and got comfortable while he repeated the handwashing, put on gloves, and took the needles out of their sterilized packages to lay them out for the various sizes he’d need to complete the outline on a sterilized tray. Ointment was spread over the transfer, then he turned to filling cups with the ink he needed.

“Are you going to finally ask him out, Ray?” She asked, just out of curiosity. Or maybe she was more invested in their happiness than she’d admit.

“I’m at work, _Suji_.”

Viv cringed at his warning. “Sorry: Unknown.”

He sighed with exasperation, the only acknowledgement he’d give her for her apology. “Maybe when he’s in a good place mentally. I’d rather he focus on himself right now.”

“What a perfect boyfriend you’ll make,” she teased.

He glanced up at her face and deliberately sucked his teeth in a sound of annoyance. “I can make this hurt worse.”

“Ok, ok!” her head shook at that bit of a smirk he sent her way, and stopped herself from flinching with the initial first sting of the needle in her skin that she knew he didn’t warn her about on purpose.

“What’s going on with this whole, tabloid bullshit anyway?”

She sighed. She knew he’d ask about it, especially since his brother was involved in some way. He was pretty protective of Seven, and he should be, after what they’d been through. “It’s a long story.”

“We’re going to be here for a while.”

Viv told him the whole thing from the beginning, about Jumin’s father attempting to break them up for the sake of his girlfriend’s wishes, the continuous fights, the first tabloid with Jumin and Sarah, the second one with her and Zen, and the nude photos Sarah sent Jumin. The latest tabloid about accusing her of using drugs because her father was an addict and subsequently, the police getting a warrant to search her home.

“Is Seven doing something about it?” he asked after her rambling story had finished. “He hasn’t mentioned it much to me. Though, privacy and such.”

“I did ask him to look into it, a while ago. He didn’t really have enough information to go on or something.”

“That’s bullshit, he’s just being lazy,” Unknown paused to refill his ink, scoffed.

“Well, the issue is that she’s not using her real name, and no one knows what it is.”

“Someone has to know. She can’t open bank accounts and such under an alias.”

“That’s because she’s most certainly using Han’s money. Everything he’s traced goes back to the Chairman.”

He tsked. “That would make it hard to track her down, wouldn’t it? And that Sarah chick?”

“Nothing that would say she’s the one involved with the tabloids. I didn’t think she was the one who sent Jumin those photos at first, but the phone number was totally under her name.”

“Not that it means much. It could still be Glam orchestrating it.”

“No, it doesn’t really, but the only thing we could get on her for right now is harassment. And you know, people don’t really take it seriously when it’s a woman harassing a man. The real issue is _why_ she’s doing all this. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Revenge, likely. You ruined her plans, Viv, according to her. She can’t ruin Jumin’s life, that would make Han drop her. But she can ruin yours and Han doesn’t give a shit about you, he just cares about his kid.”

“You think this whole thing is because she’s that petty?”

“She can’t be stupid enough to believe Jumin would ever agree to marry Sarah at this point.”

“I was hoping she had some sort of end game. Some sort of logical reason for doing all this.”

He laughed at her. “If you can call the satisfaction of making sure you can’t keep Jumin either logical, she does have an end game.”

Viv sighed. “You know, I’ve been wondering how worried I should be about Chairman Han.”

“Zero percent. Naw, he knows exactly what he’s doing. He probably just doesn’t care.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has to know the only reason these women want him is his money. The man is practically a genius, you know that, right? You’d be surprised what people will justify when they’re desperate and lonely. Add wealthy, selfish, and arrogant to the mix and you’ve got a disaster on your hands.”

“I mean, Han isn’t _that_ bad…”

Unknown paused, looked up at her with a look that seemed to question her sanity. “Don’t worry about him, worry about yourself.”

“Alright, say all of that is true—”

“—which it is, but ok—”

“The question is really what we do about it, right? He’s going to marry her. She’s going to be in the picture for the rest of our lives.”

He laughed cruelly. “They’d be together two years, tops, and he’ll move on. Hell, less than that if she’s as obnoxious as she sounds. She can’t just be treating you guys like this, you know?”

“You’re probably right. Is it horrible that I want to get rid of her now?”

“She’s trying to ruin your life. Why wouldn’t you want to get rid of her?”

“Hypothetically, how would you go about it?”

“Think about it. According to his own track record, the easiest way to get rid of the current woman is to find him a new one, right? He changes girlfriends like he changes underwear. Introduce him to a chick that’s hot enough and it’s over.”

“Huh.” Viv wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought of that before.

“You think the best of people,” he answered for her before she even asked the question, a snicker at her expense as he wiped away the blood before he continued drawing into her skin. She guessed the shock of it was on her face. “Jumin respects him enough to think his father just needs someone to prove to him how bad Glam is and he’d get rid of her. I assume the worst of people.”

It was harsh, and Jumin would have a hard time hearing it, but maybe it really _was_ the best explanation and solution.

“We’re supposed to have a dinner to celebrate Glam and Han’s engagement. We should bring someone we want him to meet. Just to be petty.”

That made him laugh. “Karma is sweet.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I moved this note to the bottom cause I feel like that's where I should put these longer notes. 
> 
> This story is no longer NSFW. 
> 
> I felt like the nsfw scenes just don't fit in with the tone of the story and I found myself not updating because I was unable to justify putting one in but feeling as if I had to because it had been too many chapters without one. I hate feeling that way, so I decided to take out nsfw scenes completely and create a completely separate companion piece for what would be the intimate development of Viv & Jumin's relationship. 
> 
> The NSFW scenes were replaced by alternative fluff/relationship development stuff in chapters 3 and 4, if you want to go back and read them. I have also made some small edits here and there to dialogue and such in early chapters, when my flow wasn't really too established yet. A few small conversation changes and they feel much more IC now. :D


	11. Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which one chooses friendship and indulges in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **{Fall}** is inspired by When You Fall by Sam Kim and Chai. Honestly, this chapter is pretty much the result of listening to Sam Kim's latest album on repeat for a week. It is nothing but fluffy fluff fluff and subtle plot progression. And fluff.
> 
> I also want to let you know [Carpe Diem](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18459425/chapters/43733219) is up. It is where the nsfw parts of this story is going, but expanded and revised. Go check it out (if you're 18+!) and let me know how I did.

She was beautiful.

It was perhaps the first time he’d been left completely speechless at the sight of a woman. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t seen each other since he’d left for college, though not nearly as much as he’d liked. He knew how difficult the last two years were for him of high school, juggling an endless amount of tasks arranged by his father and other advisors for his education and ascent as a C&R executive. Guilt ate at him at times, thoughts he needed to put aside for the sake of his sanity, things she often told him not to worry about in letters and emails. She was fine, and things got easier not seeing the three people he depended on every day.

He could forget about that tonight. College coursework, his father, hers. A pile of endless expectations on a young man of twenty and a young woman of eighteen.

Mr. Park had hired a professional photographer that clicked a camera somewhere off to the side as Sujin stepped carefully down the white marble stairs at the front of the estate. Jumin slowly meet her at the bottom step, a hand extending to replace the rail, fingers clothed in white silk gloves. Her immaculately adorned nails glimmered in the afternoon sun when her fingers curled around his, a hand he raised to his lips and brushed across her knuckles in proper gentlemanly form.

Su giggled silently, really only a breath of air through parted, happily smiling lips. His hand shifted to her elbow as she stepped down the last step, allowing her to grasp the soft indigo chiffon layers of her dress so that she didn’t step on them.

Now that she was closer, he could see the dress in its delicate details. Its bodice was lace that made a straight line across her chest, leaving her shoulders bare, skin as smooth as silk, the long line of her neck unobscured from his view. The sleeves ended in ribbons tied around her fingers to keep them stretched along her arms. Dozens of layers of chiffon cascaded down her form, hiding additional layers of lace beneath, separating when she walked, a glimpse of skin, a breath of alluring. Clusters of crystals emerged and disappeared within these layers, like stars in the night sky twinkling in and out of view behind the clouds.

Jumin pulled his gloves off and folded them, tucked them into the inside pocket of his tux’s jacket. His father stood next to hers, who he turned to in order to collect the navy velvet box held firmly in his hands. He was grinning. Jumin tried his best to keep all those fluttering feelings tamped down when he passed the box to Sujin.

She gasped when she opened it, one hand flying to her mouth before those maple-brown eyes turned up to him, bright and wide. He couldn’t help himself; his chest swelled with self-satisfaction, a smirk on his lips to match.

“Juju – you didn’t have to –“

“I know.”

It didn’t feel like part of the ritual once he’d had it in his hands, the necklace gently removed. The box was handed off while Jumin laid the trail of small, precisely cut diamonds along her chest, carefully clasping it at the back of her neck without tangling it in her hair. He searched her face, finding her trying to hide that soft, sweet blush he so rarely got to see, and smiled.

“Sujin,” he clicked his tongue at her, a playful warning.

“I didn’t –“

“You weren’t supposed to.”

Her head tilted up then, to finally look him in the eye. When had their height difference get so drastic? When had her eyes sparkled so much? He leaned his forehead down to hers when he realized the shimmer on her gaze was tears gathering along the rim. The shutter of a camera made a soft sound somewhere, he ignored it. Suji was blushing, after all.

“Thank you,” she said, finally.

Jumin only hummed, a pleased sort of sound, only for her. Of course it wasn’t in response to her thanks, it was the contented prickling along his skin that rose in the wake of those sweetly glassy eyes.

She moved away, going to hug his father, thanking him, hugging her own father who lifted her off her feet and wiggled her back and forth until she giggled. Jumin put his gloves back on in the meantime, fiddled with his cuff links, the sapphire pair she’d gotten him for his eighteenth birthday. Was it just a coincidence it matched his navy tux? Was it her favorite color, or was it one she thought he looked good in? He had to admit, indigo suited him.

Wrapping his arm around her back and pulling her to him when both their fathers requested more pictures was much too easy.

The pleasantries and photos were over quickly and soon Jumin was helping her climb into a stylish antique brass car he’d ordered refinished in navy just for today, to match the colors she’d wanted them to wear.

“Jumin,” he heard her gasp his name, felt her wrap her arms around him as they settled into the car. “Thank you. I can’t believe you—”

“Of course,” he chuckled, smiling, holding her close, letting himself feel that giddy happiness that sprung up with her in his arms. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“I know you said you’d come home but—“

He hushed her, pulling off the gloves and shifted her weight so that his arms were free but she was still leaning on him, opened a bottle of champagne to share. She covered a giggle with a hand before taking the offered drink and tapped their glasses together. “No more fretting, Suji, tonight we’re having fun.”

“ _Oh my god_ , Jumin Han and fun in the same sentence? College must be rough.”

“It is.”

She kept a careful hold on her glass but still wrapped her arms around his neck, nuzzling him cheek to cheek. He felt her eyelashes on his face, her nose brush against his jaw. “You’re the best ever.”

“I’ve missed you, Su,” he admitted, quietly.

College so far had been interesting to say the least, and despite having spent the last two years attempting to shake the vestiges of a relationship he’d never have, he never found someone that could stir the sort of feelings in him that she had. Every time they saw each other, the way his stomach tightened, his skin tingled, every time they spoke his throat closed, every time he found a message on his phone from her, his heartrate picked up. Two years ago he’d promised to always love her, and two years later he knew that it hadn’t dwindled the least bit.

Now, with her skin to skin, he wanted to kiss her. It was so strong it seemed like more like a need than he had ever felt, he wondered if he should let her go so he didn’t do something untoward.

“I’ve missed you, too, Juju,” she replied, whispered just as low as he. A secret between them. “Nothing is the same without you here. It’s been…”

He hushed her, passed his hand over her back, attempting to comfort her. “We’ll be together again soon. Three hours by car, remember?”

“I know.” Her head shook, “It isn’t the time for me to be sulking. I’m doing just fine, other than being a clingy child.”

“No, Su,” he tucked her hair behind her ear, careful not to mess up its large spiraled style flowing down her back. “You’re never clingy. It… feels nice to be needed sometimes. Certainly, no one else has been so happy to see me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, they just don’t show it as openly as I do.”

Sujin turned those eyes up to him, looked at him as if she could look into his mind, and smiled that reassuring smile for him. Against his better judgement, he brushed his lips between her eyes and wished desperately it was her lips, that he had the courage to be _her_ man, even if his father objected. Her smile widened with the contact, seeming to bask in the warmth of his affection for a long moment before pulling back to actually drink her champagne, likely flat by now.

“How have you been?” he asked, attempting to shake the haze from his mind.

“Oh, just fine. The usual.” She shrugged. “At least nothing new from the last time I spoke with you.”

He gave her a wry smile. Sometimes college had him losing track of time. When was the last time they spoke at length? The night before he’d left for Korea? “A lot can change in a few days.”

“True,” she laughed. “But it’s been the same.”

“It looks like we’re here.”

With a bit of shuffling he helped her from the car, helping to wrap a shawl over her shoulders before taking her hand and tucking it into the bend of his elbow. He notified the maître d that they’d arrived for their reservation, while Suji pulled her phone out to take pictures until their friends arrived.

“I haven’t told you,” he started, while she held the phone out in front of her and he bent to wrap his arms around her waist, pressed his cheek to her hair. He looked up at the dark circle on her phone, into the camera instead of the screen, while she pressed the side button for the picture to take.

“Yeah?”

“You look incredible.”

She turned to look at him, brows raised almost to her hairline, as if he’d said something unusual. Well, for him perhaps it was a tad strange, he rarely doled out compliments, but it wasn’t as if he neglected to do so when they were warranted. Her head tilted and she got that cute little shy smile on her lips again, eyes looking pleased as they narrowed with affection.

Satisfaction spread through him, his hands gripped her just a bit tighter, he leaned in with a bit more of his weight, his nose against her temple.

“Well, what a handsome couple this is.”

A laugh spilled through Jihyun’s lips as he led Rika up the stairs to the restaurant where Jumin released Sujin, feeling his own ears itch with heat.

“You two look _perfect_ ,” Su gasped, skipping forward to gather Rika into her arms. Jihyun approached him and shook his hand, winking to let him know he’d seen. Jumin flushed, knowing his friend saw him almost kiss her. 

He couldn’t help but notice the way the two young ladies always contrasted. Rika’s blonde curls were in an intricate pile on her head, while Su’s dark hair was loose and free. The gentle, fairy-like presence of Su’s soft fabrics and lace, shapes that laid against and along her body were overwhelmed by the large thick poof of Rika’s pastel mint dress when she hugged her, a more traditional ball gown that almost swallowed Su within it. Where Su had foregone gloves, Rika’s were white silk like his own, though they reached just past her elbows and was adorned with several bracelets on each hand. Even himself and Jihyun were almost polar opposites, with his warm light gray tux and matching mint tie, a color several shades lighter than his hair and eyes.

The only similarity between the two girls were the matching necklaces they’d bought them, of which they were giggling over at that very moment.

Jihyun, as the dutiful photographer he was, almost automatically lifted a camera he had hanging from his neck and took pictures of the girls while they held each other, silhouetted by sunlight. Jumin peered at the screen as Jihyun changed the settings on his camera, taking a rapid number of pictures almost all at once, each photo breathtaking, each one different.

Rika took Su’s arm in her own and dragged her inside, leaving the two young men to follow after them.

“Why don’t you do something about this already?” Nagged his mint-haired friend, for maybe the thousandth time over the past five years. Was his infatuation so obvious?

“I’ve told you, it’s impossible.”

“It probably isn’t as much as you believe it is. Have you tried?”

“I…” Jumin sighed. He hadn’t, not really. He thought it was better to just let her go, allow the flame to eventually die out on its own. Except it never did. He was sure his father wanted to use his impending marriage as a business prospect, he would never let him marry someone simply because he loved them. “No.”

“Then try.”

Jihyun helped Rika into her seat, while he did the same for Sujin. They were served appetizers. Small talk. Jumin tuned most of it out. It consisted mostly of the girls gossiping about who was going to be prom queen and king, who was going to which college when they graduated, whose parents were paying off the school and who were being force to take senior year over.

They told Jumin how the younger RFA members were doing, that Saeyoung had found a record label that would take him on without the pre-requisite years of training due to his association with RFA, that Saeran was on a visual arts track at the private school he was able to enter on scholarship and Jihyun’s good word, that Yoosung had decided he was going to go to veterinary school after high school, that Zen was getting his GED and would ‘graduate’ with them. All good news, it seemed.

Dinner was served, and conversations turned towards other things. Jumin and Jihyun caught them up on how they were doing in college, their days long and hard without much respite. Jumin talked about taking an exploratory structural fabrics class that left him questioning the nature of development techniques for constructing objects and a hobby of cross-stitching, and Jihyun revealed he’d started taking painting classes as an elective. He said it was good stress relief, and thought next semester he’d cross-register at the arts university nearby to take a traditional photography class. The kind you’d have to develop your own film and such.

Fortunately, once dessert came the excitement of prom bubbled up again, talking about their dresses and plans for the rest of the evening. They disappeared into their separate cars to meet up again at the school-rented ballroom, showing up late enough to not seem awkward as the first guests there but early enough that they were able to grab one of the better tables with two other couples that seemed to at least be friendly with Rika and Sujin.

As presumed the catered dinner was nothing to be happy they paid for, though the second dessert was enough to make Suji and Rika happy. They were glad they decided to go out beforehand, despite the expense their parents paid for them to attend the school it was a shame that prom catering was as abysmal as any other high school.

There was a live cover band that had been hired, throwing him back to the years of their own band and playing for dances like this one. Despite it being _their_ prom, Jihyun and Jumin had relinquished the desire to attend as guests so that they were able to perform, an experience they would likely never forget. Suji’s father made sure they had everything they needed, including custom clothes and replaced any aging equipment. It was as if they were attending their own prom together, and perhaps, that made it feel even more special.

Jumin didn’t wait for Suji ask to pull her onto the dance floor for once, not knowing the next time he’d be able to have these moments with her. Childhood ballroom lessons translated into swaying and twirling Suji on the dancefloor with finesse, pride swelling in him when Suji’s classmates watched them, astounded.

It was excuse to hold her close and he knew it. Thankfully she didn’t protest when he brought her almost chest to chest with him, leaned his cheek to her temple, kept her hand to just hold. They forgot their friends as the night went on, the closer the music brought them, the wider that abyss opened, the further it seemed he fell into it.

She started singing along with the songs as they played, quiet enough that only he heard her. It felt as if his heart would burst, that she would give him this when she feared singing so much that she cast it off almost completely. The dim lights glowing only as bright as candles, the couples around them only paying attention to the ones in their arms, allowed him to softly hum the melody with her, to let harmonies envelop them in a space even more their own.

It was this place that allowed his lapse in judgement, the sound of her voice, the resonance of his own, a shared love that connected them. Her head tilted back when he moved his hand just enough to tuck his palm under her chin, fingers in her hair at the nape of her neck. He saw when she realized what he was about to do, her beautiful eyes fluttered closed and her lips parted to welcome him, and at that point all semblance of thought escaped him outside the feel of her lips against his.

Perhaps for just that one night, she could be his.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_{Fall}_

_Hot chocolate at the café next door_  
_your smile is just as warm as the lights_  
 _white sparkles when we look outside_  
 _bright windows the stars of winter nights_

 _Extra blankets over the bedsheets_  
_two pairs of socks, the soft fuzzy kind_  
 _white patterns of ice spread over windows_  
 _one more hug to keep me warm tonight_

 _Meet me here next time snow falls_  
_Bring your smile next time snow falls_  
 _you make my heart warm_

 _That hat is cute when you smile beneath it_  
_here, let me fold your scarf just right_  
 _white clouds block the moon from shining_  
 _your hands keep mine warm at night_

 _A movie and a blanket is just fine_  
_turn the stove on, we’ll pretend it’s a fireplace_  
 _white flutters for a private showing_  
 _(pretty baby, I’ll—) tell me a bedtime story_  
 _(go to sleep) warm in your arms tonight_

 _Meet me here next time snow falls_  
_Bring your smile next time snow falls_  
 _you keep my heart warm_

 _Snow falls without warning in the winter_  
_but we can weather the storm just fine together_  
 _When the sun parts the white winter clouds_  
 _the spring rain will fall, warm and new_  


Jumin clicked on the next video, adjusted the headphones in his ears, and sat his chin in his hand with a small smile on his lips to watch.

For the winter season, as what they’d intended the EP to be for, the b-side track was gentle and meandering, sweet and so, so soft. Zen leaned into the mic from his place on his stool, that plain white turtleneck and white jeans looking much classier on him than one would first think possible. His voice sang the tender melody with controlled finesse, never pulling up or pushing through, as easy as speaking. He smiled as he gazed at the camera with half-lidded eyes, relaxed, from time to time closing his eyes, touched his heart with his hand.

Vivere sat next to him, also dressed in white. Her long dress was loose and simple, newly dyed dark violet hair cascading over her shoulders in large waves. She wasn’t wearing much makeup, her only jewelry the necklace on which her engagement ring hung, a white lace-knit cardigan to cover her shoulders. She’d tugged the sleeves up slightly, enough where he could see the tattooed wing on her wrist as she strummed the mahogany acoustic guitar in her arms, gently tapping the strings for a percussive line.

Zen sang the first half of the song alone, Viv singing the third verse and their harmonizing for the rest of the song. That was when he’d fallen in love with the track even more than the title, the way her voice was so soothing, sounded like she was smiling, full of promises and comfort. Zen turned to her when she joined him, grinned with that bit of fondness that is impossible to hide when they connected over music the way that was for just the two of them, when she hummed pretty ad-libs between his lines.

The performance was different every time, from the way she played the guitar to the harmonies they decided to sing that day, but it was always just her, Zen, and a guitar.

One of the performances had an interview attached, the entire episode being dedicated to Carpe Diem instead of just a spotlight segment for one performance. This extra round of promotional appearances were split, as none of them had the time to do all of them, and so Zen and Viv were doing the b-side track alone while Seven and Yoosung ran the variety show circuit. They were initially surprised that the past month’s scandals hadn’t gotten them barred from tv spots until it blew over, but it seemed the extra press had bolstered their popularity instead of hindered it. Any press is good press, as they say.

“Vivere, I heard you write all of Carpe Diem’s music. What brought this song about?” the interviewer asked.

“Since the EP is a winter special track and the single is… hot, I’d say, I wanted the b-side to be cold, to feel just like winter with a loved one should. I wrote this song for my friends. I feel like I’ve made their lives pretty hard lately, and I wanted to let them know how much I appreciate them.” She looked at Zen and they smiled together before she turned back to the interviewer. “I’m bad at being nice, so I have to put it in a song.”

“It sounds so much like a love song.”

“It is,” she blushed. “Real friendship is a different sort of love, but it’s still love. It’s special and precious… I don’t know where I’d be without my friends.”

“I think it sounds romantic, but hearing it’s about friendship sort of makes people think it doesn’t apply to her fiancée, then they get all kinds of crazy ideas,” Zen chimed in. “They’ve been best friends their whole lives. I’d say he’s the one that really inspired the song.”

“That’s not true, all of you guys are my inspiration…” Viv trailed off as she smiled, eyes momentarily looking away and a hand tucking her hair behind an encrusted ear. It was rare to see her in such a vulnerable place, perhaps Zen saw it, too, as he tightened his arm over her shoulder.

“Zen, how does that make you feel? Considering the rumors of you two dating…”

Zen’s head shook. “We’ve never dated and we never would. We’re like… brother and sister.”

“Yeah. But we’re the same age, so we have a different sort of relationship than, say, with Yoosung and Seven. We do our best to take care of them cause they’re our little brothers. Zen and I are a bit mean to each other, and I think some people consider it a closer sort of relationship. It’s not, it’s just different.”

“How do you feel about her marriage, Zen?”

“I was worried when the arranged marriage thing came up, I didn’t want her to get sold off for business to someone who didn't care about her. Not that Jumin would be horrible to Viv of all people, but imagine being in a marriage for because your parents want the money. That scared me.”

“To be honest, I didn’t think marriages like that existed anymore,” the interviewer seemed to frown.

“Yeah, right? But Jumin proved it wasn’t like that. They make each other happy, he really loves her and he takes good care of her. That’s the only thing I could’ve hoped for when marrying off my little sis, right? I’m glad they’re together.”

“Zen…” Viv quietly touched the hand on her shoulder, squeezed his fingers, looking at him with this near-disbelieving gratefulness. “Thank you…”

Jumin, too, felt his heart fill with Zen’s sincere, gentle sentiment.  

A knock at the door to his office disturbed him, and he glanced at his phone to see that he had a few messages he hadn’t bothered to pay attention to.

“Yes? Come in.”

Assistant Kang entered and closed the door behind her. In her hands were the usual stack of papers that she crossed the room to place on his desk. He glanced down at them, tugged his headphones from his ears, and closed his laptop to return his focus on the task that he was supposed to be doing that day. Assistant Kang, however, didn’t just leave like she normally did, instead perching on the arm of one of the chairs before his desk.

“I think we can make some progress with this,” she said, and he looked down at the paper again.

It was the credit report of a woman named Hayoon Choi, an extensive one. Almost fifteen pages of it, as he flipped through it.

“Don’t tell me – is this Glam Choi’s?”

“Yes, we were able to track down her real name after she gave me her phone number.”

“It was a personal one? That’s strange.”

“It feels as if she’s getting desperate, or maybe careless.” Miss Kang’s head tilted, looking down at the paper. “I can only think that between ‘Glam’s’ number and ‘Sarah’s’ number, we would easily be able to trace them back to something she did not want found if she used them too frequently. Her personal number might have been what she had left. I suppose she gave it to me since I attempted to portray myself as much of a disconnected employee of yours as possible.”

Jumin smiled just slightly. This was a good development. The information on these pages were damning. “I’m grateful, Miss Kang.”

Her arms cross over her chest. “You’re welcome, Mr. Han. There’s one more thing.” He lifted his attention from the papers to look at her. “I would bring in a lawyer at this point.”

“I was hoping that would not be the case.”

“Saeyoung found Glam is the one who made that ‘anonymous’ tip to the police about Vivere doing drugs at a party. They keep track of the phone numbers and names of the people who call in though a system that he was able to break into. The recording they have on file was a complete lie, and Viv was clocked in at work to prove it. You have just cause to request that information through a lawyer. I’m presuming she’s going to continue on this way until she’s stopped.”

Jumin sighed. Legal battles were the worst, he didn’t want to need to take it that far. “I am not surprised. I will if Father does not cut off this relationship once he finds she’s tried to have Vivere arrested.”

“If I may say so…"

She paused and he rose his head to look at her, an imperceptible frown on his lips. When she spoke up against him, he always had reason to worry no matter how much he dismissed it.

"Miss Park is good to you, Mr. Han. It seems to me that you should be more willing to take the measures necessary to take care of her. Her public reputation will be tarnished forever, and it will sit on her head more drastically than on yours.”

“I understand, I simply…”

“He’s your father. Except he’s willing to allow his girlfriend to destroy your fiancee’s life for… what? Money can cover up whatever he wants. It is not the same for women.”

With a frown, he nodded. Miss Kang was right. He was trying to protect his relationship with his father and his father’s well-being, when it was clear that he was enabling his girlfriend’s behavior by pretending not to notice it. They had already found she was using family money to pay for someone to follow them around and take pictures that were being sold to tabloids. These things were hurting Vivere, and in the end as much as he considered it to be hurting him as well, it wasn’t as if his name was being dragged through the mud. Only hers.

“I was hoping our wedding would take care of those issues. Presuming she cannot think to destroy a legalized marriage, I assumed she would leave us be at that point.”

“I don’t know why you’d think that,” Assistant Kang seemed to hold back some amusement for his sake. “The two of you would be set in a much more precarious position at that point. Marriages are broken up by a spouse’s relationship with the extended family all the time. She’d be able to harass Vivere further, and there would be nothing you could do about it.”

He hadn’t thought about it from that angle. It wouldn’t be as if Glam could simply be removed then. Considering she was pursuing a married man herself, it wouldn’t be past her to attempt to break up their marriage even after being wed. No, there was no evidence to believe she would stop this when their union was official, his wishful thinking was another extension of attempting to protect his father. He would need to put his foot down once and for all, and if something did not change, taking this evidence and lawyering up was his next best choice.

Then again, he couldn’t imagine their relationship lasting for very long. It was likely if left to their own devices, his father would become bored with her, as he did with every other woman, and find another to occupy himself with. Vivere and his own relationship was sure to outlast this stage. What was the priority, however, was keeping Vivere’s career and well-being safe from this woman. That was enough to take this to the next level.

“Thank you, Assistant Kang, you are right. It is time to get a lawyer and start building a case. If this is the damage she can do in a couple months, I’d hate to see what she’d do over the course of the few years their relationship is bound to last. I appreciate your care for Vivere.”

“She’s my friend, Mr. Han, of course I care.”

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever expected his assistant to say such a thing, but something about it made the weight on his shoulders a little lighter. Miss Kang was intelligent, sensible, and prudent, important traits for her station as his assistant that seemed to extend to all things, thankfully. He could trust her judgement, and hearing her suggest what he knew he would need to do all along confirmed its rationality.

“Perhaps there is one more thing, Assistant Kang. Please feel free to deny this request, it is a personal one, after all,” he started, setting the papers aside for further examination when he had the time.

She stared at him for a moment, saying nothing. He took that as a signal to keep speaking.

“In light of recent events, I… pushed Vivere into a date for our wedding: Valentine’s day. If you would be so kind to assist us in planning—”

“Help you plan your wedding?” her brows drew up high over the rim of her glasses, incredulous. “Wouldn’t it be better to hire a wedding planner?”

“I am hesitant to do so, considering… you are resourceful and… I can pay you what I would have for a wedding planner, in that case, for your time.” He brushed a hand through his hair. “It also seems you are due for a vacation yourself, Miss Kang.”

“And when do you think I’d be able to take it during all this mess,” she laughed.

“How does taking our honeymoon off sound? A guaranteed two weeks of no one calling you in, as I won’t be here,” he smirked at his own expense, knowing the times she was on vacation and he’d call her in for an ‘emergency’.

Instead of answering immediately, she said, “you’ve changed, Mr. Han.”

“Is that—?”

“It’s good.” She smiled. It was still rare that his assistant smiled at him, because of him. “I’ll help, but you take care of Vivere.”

“Yes,” he agreed, bowed ever so slightly, in thanks. “Perhaps we should get back to work. How is the coffee venture going?”

“Well, well,” her mouth spread from a smile to a grin. “I think I have done a good job so far, shall we go take a look at the new location?”

“Already finished one? How efficient.”

“Bought a different coffee shop and renovated, retrained the staff, revamped the menu. Much cheaper than starting from construction.”

Jumin stood, grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair. Miss Kang stood and moved to the door, waiting. “Have you seen Viv and Zen’s latest performances?”

“Oh yes,” she seemed to perk up even more, this time he wasn’t able to withhold his own proud smile. “I’d love to see them live. This song in particular is so…”

“I’ve been thinking the same,” he nodded, grabbing his coat.

She sighed, opening the door to start down the hall to her desk. He turned to lock his office door, followed her to meet her at her desk, helped her into her coat.

Then the thought came across his mind, Miss Kang had done so much for him of her own volition, that she’d gone out of her way to take care of them and he hadn’t done anything in return than ask her for more of her time and effort.

“Let’s go,” he looked at his watch. They had about an hour. With the drive across town and getting through security, it could take longer than that but he could expedite the entry. He wouldn’t be able to account for traffic. Then they could have dinner together and visit this coffee shop later.

“What?”

“There’s one soon, we can get there and surprise them if we leave now.”

“We have so much work—!”

“It can wait.” Jumin squeezed his assistant’s shoulder, smiled down at her. “Let’s go.”

Her eyes widened and she hesitated for a moment, his often level-headed and expressionless assistant showing for only a moment. Then she nodded, just once, and followed as he hurried out the door.

 

 

 

 

Zen leaned down to press his cheek to Viv's, making her laugh, tickling her to make her flinch away, that beaming grin bringing her happiness. Viv hugged him with one arm around the waist, gazing out at the crowd cheering for their successful performance. The white theme for all of the performances for _Fall_ was continued even now, a mid-thigh length sweatshirt and sweater tights with a cute pair of boots matched his grey sweater vest, white suit shirt and slacks. He had a scarf laid loosely around his neck, the station requested she ‘fix’ for him which she attempted to strangle him with instead, and he yanked the hat on her head down over her eyes playfully for the pictures the studio was going to use for the commercials advertising the episode.

Zen took her shoulders in his hands and turned her physically towards the audience, bent slightly at the knees so that he was at a level height with her, and pointed out into the crowd.

“Look who’s here, Viv,” he said into her ear, and she squinted past the lights to see a pair of hands waving.

When she realized who those hands belonged to, she gasped, lips widening into a grin.

“Go.”

Viv looked back at him, unsure she should just leave the stage like that, but he laughed at her, lightly pushed her back.

“Go!”

She didn’t need to be told another time, hopping down from the stage to take off at a run towards the person who was now coming to meet her. In the distance she heard Zen’s feet hit the floor, following at a slower pace. The cameras filmed the whole thing: Zen as he paused some ways away, crossing his arms over his chest with one of those pleased smiles as he watched. Viv, as she and Jumin met, as she squealed his name and he laughed, when he picked her up just as she reached for him, and she wrapped herself around him, arms and legs hooking around her fiancée. When they finally kissed, loving and soft, almost smiling against each other’s lips.

Then Viv came up from the haze of being surprised by the love of her life, wiggled her legs until he put her down, and found Jaehee had also gotten up and joined Zen. He’d laid an arm over her shoulder and they were talking, waiting for them. Jumin took her hand, lifted it to his lips and kissed the wing at her wrist before tugging her towards their friends.

Viv gave Jaehee a hug. As casually as could be, Zen and Jumin clasped hands for a handshake. Zen had turned his mic off, pulled Jumin in to tap their shoulders together, and they simultaneously pat the other on the back, a few words whispered between them. 

It seemed it was decided they were done for the time being, and so they were lead back to a lobby room to wait and watch the rest of the show.

“I can’t believe you guys!” she giggled, hanging a bit too much on Jaehee’s shoulders, almost pulled her over. “Jumin even brought you along! Did you enjoy Zen? He was great today.”

“It was lovely, both of you were wonderful,” Jaehee gushed, held the younger woman close.

“They’re going to want to interview us,” Viv whispered, “Because Jumin is here.”

“That’s fine with me,” he shook his head ruefully. “I suspected that would be the case when I decided to come.”

“Thank you for bringing Jaehee,” she smiled up at him, feeling especially grateful. “You’ve become so sweet, lately.”

“It’s your fault,” he half-admonished, half-smiled, then admitted, “I thought I owed it to her.”

Jumin pulled Viv on his lap so there was enough room for all four of them to sit on the couch, Jaehee between them and Zen.

“What made you come see us today?” Zen laughed.

“Miss Kang expressed enjoying the recordings of these performances, and I did, also. When I realized we had time to make it to the next one, I suggested we attend, and Miss Kang agreed.”

“That’s amazing,” Zen’s head shook, grinned at Jaehee. “It’s a doppelganger.”

Jaehee’s head shook, as if she didn’t want to comment on it.

“Anyway, man, it’s good to see both of you. The promotion schedule is so hectic that we haven’t been able to grab something to eat in weeks. I bet you two have barely seen each other.”

Viv nodded. “We’re both stupidly busy. Plus the days we’re not performing I’ve been in the studio. We’re booked to the nth degree until mid-January with the Christmas and winter special recordings. Of course, there’s a ton of people who just out of the blue decided to do something, and I’ve been asked to write double the duets since this EP went big. It’s sort of amazing, actually.”

“Jaehee just told me you’re getting married on Valentine’s Day. When the hell were you going to tell me, Viv?” Zen scoffed indignantly at her.

“I— Zen—” Her eyes widened, a deer caught in headlights. There wasn’t any particular reason she hadn’t mentioned it other than things had been so busy that she hadn’t thought about it, and it had only been a few days since then. Her head shook, embarrassed, then grinned. “Zen! We’re getting married on Valentine’s Day!”

He grinned, huffed a soundless laugh. “Holy shit, Viv, that’s great! So cute!”

Her hands covered her mouth as she giggled, her feet shuffling against Jumin’s legs. Zen brightened for her, looking as happy as she felt. “Oh my god, Zen!” She reached out a hand and he took it, wiggling their hands in a little celebratory dance. For the first time, she excitedly squeaked to some one who actually cared, “Zen! I’m getting married, Zen!”

Jaehee laughed between them, placed a light hand on her knee. “Mr. Han asked me to help you plan the wedding.”

“No way! _No way!_ ” She squeaked, elated. When did he do that? Why would he do that? How could he know to be so wonderful to her? “Jaehee! Thank you! I’m so excited! You’re the best, ever.”

“I’ll help,” Zen nodded, looking at Jaehee. “It’ll be a lot for you to handle on your own.”

“You don’t have to,” Jaehee shook her head. “You’re so busy.”

“It’ll die down after another week or so, and you’re going to be still doing your normal work in the office, too. Besides, I have fantastic taste. It’ll be the most stylish wedding this decade. Until I get married, of course,” Zen grinned.

Vivere covered her face to hold back the tears of happiness that threatened to pour down her cheeks. Jumin rubbed her back, gently, a soft chuckle in his throat.

“Zen, Jaehee, I don’t deserve you, really, I don’t,” she leaned to give them both a hug.

“You could say that for both of us,” Jumin agreed.

Both Jaehee and Zen looked at Jumin as if he’d grown a second head, and then Zen grinned so wide Viv felt it in her face.

“Nah, dude, we’re just friends, and that’s just what friends do.”

 

 

 

 

Viv and Jaehee leaned into each other in the booth, scrolling through pictures on their phones and occasionally pointing one out to each other as something to add to the list of wedding things. The giggled and smiled, poked at one thing and then the next. When their coffee arrived the two girls gently tapped their cups together in a toast, took a sip and thoroughly discussed the notes of the coffee as he and Jihyun used to with wine.

He was simultaneously jealous and entirely satisfied with the development of their friendship.

“You have to have an opinion, too, Jumin,” Zen was saying to him, sipping on a hot chocolate. He’d said he was in the mood for one since he’d been singing about them all week. “The most important thing of the entire production is what you’re wearing, where it’s held, and what you’re eating. That’s what everyone is going to be talking about for literally ever.”

“Likely where we should spend most of our time. But you know we’re going to have so many people that there’s not a lot of choices when it comes to where,” Viv’s head tilted at him.

“Hey, now, don’t be like that. This is your wedding, you decide how many people, where, and who comes. Don’t let other people dictate stuff like that for you. You’re only getting married once, right?”

Viv smiled and looked at him, a blush coming across her face. “True, we’re only getting married once.”

Jumin returned the smile, looking down to adjust his cuff links. Zen nudged him and laughed at his expense.

“Listen, have you seen the Dior men’s pre-fall show? That shit was slick. It’s still going to be cold when you get married, too, so you could pick up one of those bomb-ass coats.”

“Oh, let me see!” He pulled it up and handed her his phone. “Oh, my, Zen, damn, this is _amazing_! It’d suit Jumin perfectly! Jaehee, look!”

Miss Kang was quieter about it, but she also seemed pleased with the suggestion. “This kimono style wool coat is particularly sophisticated.”

“Did you see that beautiful white jacket with the vanishing sleeves? The cut is striking while the fabric creates some interesting contrast.”

“I would not want to detract from the beauty of my fiancée walking down the aisle,” Jumin noted pensively, listening to them gush over clothes.

“There’s no way to do that, Viv’s going to look magnificent,” Zen grinned. “Right, babe?”

“Zen! Do you already have ideas?” she pressed her hands together with large glittering eyes.

“I have a designer in mind, I also know a great photographer. Of course, all your stuff would be custom.”

“All my stuff?”

“You’re going to have at least two dresses for the event, right? And three for the photoshoot.”

“Zen, that’s way too much!”

“Not for my fiancée,” Jumin tsked, lifting his own coffee to his lips.

“See?” Zen motioned a thumb at him. “I know this guy, nothing but the best for you, Viv.”

“We’re talking hundreds of thousands—”

“—of all the people to be worried about money—”

“Oh, Mr. Han would look quite good in this suit, I’d say.”

“If Jaehee says so, it must be true. Let me— god, that’s an elegant suit.”

“Second pot of coffee, the light roast. The menu says this one is chocolatey.”

“Are we going to assess all of the coffees?”

“No, but we should get an idea of whether they’re high quality or not. The last pot was likely ground too finely, it was strong for a dessert coffee.”

“You’re so good at this, Jaehee!” Viv looked at her in awe. “The hotels usually cater the events in them. Do you think location or food is more important?”

“Location,” both Zen and Jaehee answered at the same time.

“Most people will forgive shit food at a wedding, large catering jobs means they’re prepping food a couple days in advance. It’s never going to be as good as something prepared specially for you right then and there. But terrible locations will also mean terrible pictures, and terrible staff is remembered forever.”

“We’ll go together,” Jaehee placed a hand on Viv’s. “I know you’re worried about the guest list. We’ll do that together. I know who Mr. Han could safely cut off without harming the business so we can get it as small as possible. Then we’ll start worrying about venues.”

“I don’t know what to do to thank you, Jaehee.”

“Mr. Han has promised me a vacation, so I’m perfectly satisfied.”

“Yes, but that’s from him. I mean, from me. What can I do for you?”

The two women stayed quiet for a long moment, Jaehee looked out the window at the gray sky with its white clouds and sparse flurries, and turned back to Viv with a smile. “It’s snowing.”

Across the room, they heard singing, a group of girls giggling over their hot drinks and pointing out the window. Jumin realized the song Viv and Zen had performed earlier that day was playing over the speaker, and the girls were singing along. Viv covered her mouth with her hands, eyes turning to Zen, who was grinning so wide it looked like it hurt, what looked like tears hovering at the edge of her eyes.

Jumin couldn’t hold back his smile when she whispered in awe, “they’re so beautiful. They sound so beautiful. They’re like…”

“Angels.”

 

 

 

 

Viv wrapped the plush robe around her, standing in front of Jumin’s full length windows in his penthouse, a glass of whiskey between her fingers. Jumin watched her silently from where he sat on the bed, an empty glass of wine on his bedside table, clad only in a pair of silk pajama pants. The barely heard static of bodyguard’s radios flashing on and off occasionally gave her peace of mind, allowed her to put aside the trepidation of someone coming in and destroying her home.

She wanted to think that the officers would have never hurt her despite being rude, but she knew they were human and keeping them accountable for their actions was getting harder and harder. She wanted to be confident there was a good reason it had happened, but the truth was Glam had lied, had created a tabloid, doubt in the mind of everyone including the police. Who was to blame that they took action without looking further into the matter, but what if the search was looking into it, what if that was the only way they could be sure? Could she blame them for doing their jobs in that case?

“Suji,” said the melodic voice of her fiancée, bringing her thoughts back to the present. He placed light fingers on her shoulders. “Are you here, my love?”

“Sorry,” she sighed. He must have said something to her and she hadn’t answered. She laid a hand on top of the one he slipped around her, and she felt his chin on top of her head. It was familiar and made her feel more secure. “I keep trying to reason through everything, but it seems like none of the conclusions are logical.”

His free hand stroked wet hair, slowly, carefully, working through tangles with his fingers. “Tell me.”

“I’m sure I’ve already told you,” she laughed, softly.

“Tell me anyway.”

Viv tugged on his hand, pulled him closer to her. “I’d hate to ask something of you that you’re fundamentally against just because I…”

When she fell silent, back into her thoughts, she was stirred again by his hand plucking her somehow empty glass from her hand and placing it on his desk to the side. Then he enveloped her in his arms, dragged her close to press a kiss under her ear. “What would you do for someone that you love?”

He knew her answer, that’s why he was asking, to point out that he felt the same. Her head shook. People should have choices, shouldn’t feel obligated or pressured into something that they didn’t want to do because of feeling bad for someone else. She didn’t want to be dependent on anyone like that. Besides, if she was worried about staying in her own home, she could stay with her father. She even had a room at his place already prepared just in case he needed someone to supervise his health.

“Look at me, angel,” Jumin requested, lifting her chin.

“I’m sorry, Juju, it’s not as big of deal as I’m making it out to be,” she laughed softly. “I was just thinking through the whole drug raid thing. I haven’t been feeling safe in my home, you know?” There, it was said. No problem. “Trying to convince myself it won’t happen again.”

“You’re safe here in my home,” he assured her.

“I know I am. I’m just trying to figure out what to do.”

He nodded, prompting her to go on.

“I mean, I figure I should get the condo ready to sell or something anyway, you know, since I’ll be moving after the wedding. I was thinking of renting it out, too, though I would have to check the contract with the building first. Some HOAs don’t like for you to sublet, or will basically have them sublet the place for you. In the meantime, I’ll probably stay with Dad.”

“Or you could stay with your husband,” Jumin smirked. It was a small expression, a pleasant uptick of the corner of his mouth, the slightly narrowing of his eyes. “Is that what this is about?”

“Isn’t it a bit early for you? I’ve already pushed you into so much,” her head tilted as she looked up at him. “You’ve told Zen a thousand times how much you disapprove of couples living together before marriage.”

“Considering the circumstances and the timeline, it wouldn’t make sense for you to move twice.”

“I know, but—”

“You are…” he sighed, “…ridiculous.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“Huh?”

He chuckled, picked her up under her knees to bring her to the bed, placed her more gently than usual upon it then climbed in next to her, tucking her to him, curling close around her. She let him do as he pleased, more because she was too tired to protest and her mind had been in a thousand places at once for the past week. She needed the contact, and it seemed that he knew exactly when it was that she did.

“A long time ago, you wrote a song for me,” at a low octave, he whispered in her ear.

“I’ve written, like, a dozen songs for you,” she rolled her eyes.

“You’re determined to prevent a mood, aren’t you?”

“If you wanted to fuck you should’ve just told me.”

He chuckled. “Unfortunately, I always want you— but that is not what I was attempting at the moment.”

She didn’t know when she’d closed her eyes, but she opened them to look at him where he’d propped his head on his hand and was looking down at her. “So?”

“It went something like, ‘ _we’ll be happy here, just us… we’re safe here, tangled close…’”_

The sound of his voice rumbled gently against her forehead. Talk about a person who refused to admit that their singing voice was incredible, Jumin’s deep baritone vibrated through her skin and set her cells on fire. She understood what he was getting at, the song she’d written for him back then was at a time when he was asking a lot of questions about himself and who he should be, rather than getting to know who he was.

“ _My home is where your heart lives,”_ she finished, smiling at the sweet memory. He’d hummed it for weeks after she’d sung it for him then.

He smiled, seemingly pleased she’d remembered. “This place will never be my home until you’re in it,” he told her, a hand laying lightly just left of the center of her chest. “My heart is right here.”

“Jumin—”

“Please come home, my love.”

She flushed. “You are insufferable!”

He seemed happy with that reaction, dipping down to lightly kiss her lips. She chased him as he pulled away, lifting her chin that he caught in his fingers, pushed up into her hair, reconnected their lips. “You’re near exhausted.”

“Yeah,” she let her eyes close, turned away and stretched her arms, tucked one under her pillow. He reached over her to turn off the light. A hand skimmed her thigh, then gently fixed the wrapping on her new tattoo, meant to protect it at night. An arm pulled her in, the other slipped beneath her neck, legs tangled, almost too warm for blankets even in the winter. She tried to let it soothe her. “Juju?”

“Yes, my love?”

“Are you sure about this? I just… I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

He hushed her, kissed the back of her neck, an admonishing tone in his almost-whisper. “My whole heart and soul, not a word more. You’re home.”

She nodded, settled, forced herself to relax, finding his hand that was thrown across her to thread their fingers together. When she let herself stop, listen to his breath as it slowed, released herself to the bed and its warmth, felt the silk on her skin and the weight of his arm along her, her heartbeat calmed, the heaviness of sleep that she’d been fighting off with worry overtaking her.

 

 

 

 

Scents made Jumin’s stomach rumble him awake, and he checked his clock for the time. So late in the year, it seemed quite bright outside for how early he needed to get up for work, used to waking up while it was still dark. His phone had been turned off, he wondered when he’d done such a thing, and rubbed at his eyes to peer at the time again.

Ah, it was nine.

_Nine!_

Morning meetings started at eight-thirty, surely he was late, very late. No time to panic, but since they’d taken such a lazy day the afternoon previously, there was no way he could slack off today, also. He turned on his phone as he rushed into the living room, gathering his things for the day.

And yet, he couldn’t help but stop. Viv was in the kitchen with the radio on, singing to the songs. He could barely hear the actual song, he could only hear her voice and the hint of an instrumental. Is this how she spent her mornings? Was she the reason those wonderful smells were coating his home in vanilla? His chef always came in the morning to make breakfast – why hadn’t he come in today?

Jumin found the table set with glasses of orange juice and a pot of tea brewing. She knew they had to be at work, didn’t she?

He couldn’t be too much later by finding out what was going on, right? Following the sound of her voice, he leaned into the doorframe of his kitchen, a neat pile of pancakes beginning to form as she swayed, her hair thrown up in a messy bun and wearing one of his undershirts and a pair of his boxers. She’d unwrapped the new tattoo, had slipped her feet into his white cat slippers that were much too large for her. Elizabeth the Third was making figure eights around her feet, purring and chirping as if she, too, was singing along.

For a moment, he allowed himself to watch her. He’d never allow her to do this before, even though she’d insist, but now that she was home, now that this was _her_ home, he supposed he couldn’t prevent her from doing as she pleased.

Was this a normal thing? To be made to feel so… what was this? ‘Full’… perhaps ‘complete’? Such a cliched word in such circumstance, wasn’t it? Except there was nothing like it. It was so simple, so domestic, and he shouldn’t feel like this when it was merely his fiancée singing to the radio over pancakes in the morning sunlight, but here he was – arrested by the sight of her, the sound of her. There was something… about _this_ that was…

If he didn’t understand what love felt like before, he knew he did now.

He was so, so late to work.

Viv turned the stove off, retrieved small serving dishes of eggs and sausages that looked like they were cooked to perfection, and grabbed two pairs of chopsticks.

“Good morning, Juju,” she quipped as she passed him. He watched her shuffle out of the room, the loud clap of his slippers on the hardwood floor and the wafting of good food smells trailing behind her. She returned empty handed, picking up the plate of pancakes and a bottle of syrup. Without pausing, she chuckled at him and motioned to his briefcase with the syrup. “You know it’s Saturday, right?”

_Saturday._

Of course.

With a sigh, he shook his head, set down his briefcase against the closest wall and followed her to heavily sit into the chair on the side of the table that had somehow, at some point, become ‘his’. When she returned with small bowls of fruit, she laughed as she sat down, then began to slip pancakes onto her plate. He supposed she intended for him to serve himself, but he didn’t want to be rude—

“Eat,” she commanded, pouring herself some tea and setting the small pot back in the middle of the table.

Ah, it seemed she didn’t mind if he took the initiative to partake himself. Why would she have?

“You slept a lot longer than I thought you would,” she laughed.

“Su, you didn’t have to make breakfast.”

“Hm? Oh this? It’s nothing,” she waved dismissively, her eyes returning to the tv. He hadn’t even noticed she’d turned it on, as its volume was low. Or maybe his focus had been on his fiancée.

Jumin filled his plate and a mug of black tea he found was his favorite morning blend by the scent. He made sure to try each portion separately before pairing them, finding the eggs fluffy and the sausage just crisp enough on the outside that the char added extra flavor and texture. He didn’t like sweets, so she’d sliced strawberries and provided whipped cream, which wasn’t as cloying as syrup.

Itches of college memories made him smile, of late night breakfast chains in America being the only thing open at 4am after long nights of drinking and dancing.

It felt rude to look at his phone, but she was watching tv, not seeming to want to carry on a conversation. She never was much of a morning person, which added to his surprise that she’d cooked. Jumin took the time to scroll through his schedule and the tasks he’d planned for the day. There would be no meetings that day, obviously, but it was a chance to catch up on the things that he had set aside during the week for one thing or another. Miss Kang had already mentioned in the chat she was going to be there in the afternoon for a short time, since they had taken it off the day before. But he could relax, do things at his own pace today.

His fiancée almost growled across the table, making him look up from his phone. “No, fucking, way.”

Attention brought back to the tv, he watched himself kiss her on the screen, curled together on the couch in the studio. She did warn him that they could be recording and he told her that he didn’t care. Which was still true now. He turned his eyes back to his phone.

_“We’re going to make it through this. I’ve waited my whole life to love you, Suji.”_

_“I can’t bear the thought of hurting you. I’d rather watch from afar and see you happy than—”_

_“—you are my happiness, Su. You’re my heart and soul.”_

The studio had edited the video so that there were cartoon hearts floating around their heads. It was all very juvenile.

_“Ugh, you’re embarrassing.”_

The cartoon hearts burst and they painted pink lines over her cheeks to make it obvious that she was embarrassed, which was completely unnecessary. Besides, she was plenty cute on her own when she got like that.

The female announcer gushed, pressed her hands to her cheeks.

_“There has been a lot of debate around this relationship, but I think this proves it. No one can say these two don’t love each other! This was a private interaction caught on tape by the studio when they didn’t know anyone was watching.”_

Then the male announcer gave a short recap as to all the issues surrounding Viv for the past week. A picture of the original tabloid next to the press release AM sent out to officially denounce the officers that raided Viv’s home and revealed extensive drug testing results were negative flashed over the screen.

_“The police have admitted to allowing an opinion piece sway their judgement in the matter. Mr. Han is seeking fair compensation for the destruction of his fiancée’s belongings from the department. Miss Park’s superior told us when he checked their records the supposed time and place she was out doing drugs was in fact the same time she was at work. There is even video evidence if need be.”_

_“So, the police did not need to raid her home and destroy her belongings to find out whether or not she actually had drugs?” He looked upset._

_“It seems like Miss Park has gained the attention of someone who really must not like her, though I bet it’s someone who wanted to marry Jumin Han. Should there not be a process in place where something like this doesn’t happen? What about those who don’t have the resources of Jumin Han behind them?”_

_“She could also sue for trauma and increased risk to her safety. Studies say when a person who is innocent is targeted by the police, they are more likely to be victimized later and it builds further distrust in those who know about the event.”_

“No shit, sherlock,” complained Viv at the announcers on tv.

“My love, turn this off,” Jumin told her, but she shook her head. He supposed knowing what was going on when it came to the outside world’s perception of their relationship was a good idea considering the circumstances, no matter how frustrating it was, and watching her fuss at the tv was rather adorable.

_“Yesterday, Mr. Han attended a performance of Carpe Diem’s b-side track 'Fall'. Miss Park was insisted off the stage by Zen, then ran through the audience to meet her fiancée. It was all very sweet,” the female announcer gushed._

_“Afterwards, we were able to have a brief word with the couple and their friends.”_

The screen showed a clip of the four of them leaving the broadcasting building, on their way to the coffee shop.

_“Mr. Han, did you enjoy the performance?”_

_“Of course. My fiancée’s voice is simply resplendent. Zen was good, too, I suppose.”_

_“Whatever, man,” Zen laughed._

_“You know that’s a bigger compliment than you’re taking it as,” Viv nudged Zen._

_“Well, he doesn’t have to be a jerk about it,” Zen scoffed, but was still smiling nonetheless._

_“When do you plan on getting married?” “Have you thought about having children?” “Will Miss Park continue singing after your marriage?”_

_“I certainly hope she does.”_

_“Dude, she better.”_

_“I mean, I’m not going to just quit my job or something.”_

_“It would be a shame if Miss Park stopped singing now after the work it took to convince her to do so.”_

_“True. What are the deets on that?”_

_“Mr. Han guilt-tripped her into it,” Miss Kang revealed, with a teasing tone._

_“I should’ve known he was the only one who’d get her to do it.”_

_“Guys, I’m right here.”_

“Why is this a news segment? I can’t believe anyone would be interested in this,” she groused, popping one of his left over strawberries into her mouth. He wasn’t sure when they’d finished their food, but the tea pot was empty and his plate was bare.

Jumin chuckled, reached over to grab her left hand, sticky with syrup and fruit sugar, watched her face as she blushed when he brought two fingers to his lips. “We should use their interest to our advantage.”

“Alright, sure, I guess,” she absently agreed, tried to yank her hand back. “It would help, maybe.”

“Let me thank you properly.”

“But don’t you have to—”

“My love, come here.”


	12. Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything goes completely wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {wish} is inspired by IU's [Through the Night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3nla0BxVX8)

“Listen, Rika, I don’t know what you’re trying to do but… I need you to stop.”

She paused and stepped back, green eyes wide and lips parted in shock. A half-hearted smile appeared on her glistening lips, which reminded him to wipe his own with the back of his hand, the distance allowing him to actually think and figure out what was going on.

“Can’t you just… talk to me?”

“I think I made myself clear,” she giggled. “I guess not that many girls approach you, hm?”

“I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, Rika, I don’t like to put words in people’s mouths.”

“Don’t you like me, Jumin?”

How was he supposed to answer that question? “You’re my best friend’s girlfriend, there’s no way I’d betray him.”

She hummed and turned to the window, looked up at the sun. “I know.”

“Then…”

“What about how you feel?”

He didn’t want to answer that.

“What do you think would have happened if we had met first?”

Her voice was wistful, ephemeral. Sunshine glowing at the edges of sunshine-colored hair.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“Of course not.”

“I’m not who Jihyun thinks I am.”

Then, he remained silent.

“I think you know me. All the dark parts of me, you accept them for what they are. Jihyun’s light is trying to erase that from me, and I think you’d embrace me.”

“I can do that as a friend, Rika.”

“It’s not enough.”

She turned to look at him. Perhaps it was the way her face was eclipsed by the light behind her, dark green eyes foreboding. It sent a chill down his spine. Leaning on the window gave him this odd feeling she was going to fall, it made him want to go to her and physically prevent it from happening, as if holding her could prevent her death and not make this situation even more awkward.

“Every ounce of energy, every thought in your mind, every breath you take – I want it to belong to me. That’s what my darkness needs, the devotion that you’d give me and what Jihyun refuses to provide.”

“I can’t imagine…”

It was almost imperceptible, the shift of her eyes shrouded in shadow to his side.

“…that Jihyun refuses, it must be that he can’t. That isn’t a healthy thing to ask from anyone, Rika.”

“That’s why I want you, Jumin, I need you. You understand me.”

Who was this person? What had she done with the Rika he knew? “How would you even think that?”

“Possessiveness is what you fight against the hardest, isn’t it? You wouldn’t believe how much I wrestle with that feeling.”

“Yes, but I’ve learned to control it fairly well.”

“Except when it comes to Sujin, right? The pretty little prize that’s the one thing you won’t be given and can’t buy. Do you even like her?”

The circumstances of their stations in life was more complicated than that, he wanted to insist, but he couldn’t deny he didn’t question himself sometimes.

“If you don’t want her, there’s no reason for you to keep holding on to her. You’re going to hurt her, you know.”

“You’re going to hurt Jihyun like this, Rika.”

“He’d be fine, I’m sure Jihyun doesn’t even like me. He just wants to fix me. What happens when I’m no longer broken?”

She watched silently for a moment and he heard something _click_ so softly that he wasn’t sure if it was real or if he was hearing things, even if he wasn't he couldn't turn his eyes from her. Then she turned to look back out of the window. Was this even a situation where she should be trying to negotiate with him like this? What did Su have to do with this? Or even Jihyun? This was diametrically opposed to his own sense of morality, which was the real reason he would keep saying refusing regardless of the reasons she’d come up with.

“Jumin, would you try to change me?”

His head shook. It didn’t make sense to him. “No one wants you to change, Rika.”

“I knew you would say that.”

None of this made sense to him. It seemed like he was saying the things she wanted to hear, or perhaps she wasn’t hearing him at all.

“Jumin? It’s ok to listen to what you want sometimes. You don’t always have to protect someone else.”

No, he wasn’t protecting someone else, he was protecting himself.

A shield against the sweet voice of his father’s women, being kind of him to get on his father’s good side. Propositioning him when they were alone. A wall against the girls at school who slipped perfumed notes in his locker professing their love for him, who he’d never talked to before, who knew nothing about him other than his name.

Both barriers he’d let down for this girl, who’d come into their space and he treated like family, just for her to try to take advantage of the tangled threads she knew he had.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, shook his head at her slowly.

“No?”

“No.”

She sighed, looking disappointed. “Just tell me why.”

“If you truly knew me, you’d know loyalty is the one thing I value above everything. Nothing in me understands betrayal. Whatever this darkness is inside you, I would never accept if it meant crushing every person I have ever cared about. You shouldn’t accept that for your life, for mine, you shouldn’t be willing to let it destroy their lives either. After everything we’ve done for you, you should be fighting that darkness to keep our friends safe!”

He realized he was shouting. Rika blinked at him, looking shamed, the shadowed darkness of her eyes gone. It had to be the light had changed, had they really been talking that long? Deep and slow, he took another forced breath.

“Fight the darkness every single minute of every single hour,” he repeated. “I know I do.”

“I could do that for you, Jumin, if you wanted me,” she insisted.

“Rika… I love Jihyun and Sujin more than I will ever, can ever love you. I will not hurt them for you.”

Finally, she nodded as if she understood. Again, the flicker of her eyes to the side. What the hell was she—

Jumin whirled around to find Jihyun and Sujin standing at the door to the practice room, looking as if they had been there for a while. Suji squeezed Jihyun’s hand, was clenching her jaw so hard he could see her neck flex. Jihyun was using the heel of his free hand to press to his eyes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Déjà vu.

Viv looked up at the small dais where Zen and Jumin played a piano and cello duet of a selection of classical songs. It was strange to see them playing together again, strange because there was someone missing. She frowned, looked around the dining room for a moment if she could find a mint-haired, tall, lanky idiot and his soft smile, but he wasn’t there.

She wondered when she’d stop looking for him.

Mr. Han had requested a short set of songs, a half hour at most, primarily featuring his son playing the cello for the first time in a couple of years. Something about missing being surrounded by its beauty. All of them found it to be a rather strange request, but didn’t deny it as, well, Jumin rarely said no to his father, especially when it was something as innocuous as this.

Together, Jumin and Zen lifted their hands from their instruments and breathed to the applause of the small crowd sitting before the platform. Jumin stood, finding her as she stepped up to join them and took her hand to kiss the back of it. It wasn’t a normal way of greeting another performer, but they were primarily in front of family and friends so there shouldn’t be anything wrong with his small display of affection. She turned and bowed to Zen, who bowed in return, while Jumin returned to his seat and adjusted his cello between his legs.

She lifted her violin to tuck it beneath her chin, a half-lidded glance back at Zen, the two men gazing at her intently for the signal to start, she inhaled and their fingers returned to their instruments. She waited two heartbeats and exhaled, crashing her bow down to the strings in unison with them, the sound bursting from their instruments like thunder. The first movement, fast and striking, gave way into the second movement, gentle and romantic. A story of sound, two who clashed gradually falling in love and becoming each other’s comfort, its final movement transforming the two themes into satisfied happiness.

“Mr. Han, I had no idea that your son was so talented,” whispered the gorgeous blonde woman sitting next to him, leaned into his direction just a bit too much.

“He’s been playing the cello since he was a child,” he replied, Glam on his other side elbowing him to let him know he was being rude.

They played two more pieces, each with several movements.

“Father, Ms. Choi, as our set comes to a close, I have asked my dearest fiancée to grace us with a special piece,” Jumin announced as he stood from his seat. Viv handed him her violin so that she could wipe her hands off on a towel before she performed the last one.

Mr. Han looked at her father, who shrugged.

“It is a solo piece, one of the most difficult and beautiful compositions for the violin ever composed. Biber’s Rosary Sonata number sixteen, Passacaglia: The Guardian Angel.”

He handed her the violin, and she carefully cleaned the strings of rosin, as she needed the control of the bare strings, then handed him the small towel. With a last kiss to her temple, he and Zen stepped down from the platform to join the ‘audience’. She waited until they were seated before she began to play. It was one of those pieces that she had to put her whole concentration, spirit and body into in order to finish without mistakes. No, she didn’t care about that, she wanted her father and her fiancée to be proud of her. Not only that, learning such a magnificent song was a delight, a challenge she hadn’t had in a while.

“Goodness, she’s incredible,” the blonde woman gasped as softly as she could, a hand over her mouth. “You did such a wonderful job choosing a wife for your son.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Han grinned, visibly delighted with the compliments.

Eight minutes were over as if they had never begun, and as she lifted her bow off the string their small group stood and clapped for her. She noticed that Mr. Han had to prod Glam into standing just as she came up from her bow. She rose a hand to Zen and Jumin, who joined her and bowed with her, before the three separated. Mr. Han and Glam received Jumin as her father hugged her and Zen fiercely.

“You were magnificent,” her father held her at arm’s length, then kissed her forehead.  

Mr. Han was waiting for her when her father let her go, hugging her just as tight. “Thank you, Sujin. I know you arranged all this for us.”

She laughed, shook her head, blushed. “You’re giving me way too much credit.”

She watched him move to Zen and emphatically shake his hand, place a hand on his shoulder and grip it hard, sort of shaking him as he thanked him. Zen just laughed, bowed his head a couple of times, until Mr. Han let him go.

Her father had sat himself at the piano. “Come here, birdie.”

“Aw, Daddy, dinner is about to be served,” she laughed, and despite her complaint, moved to join him, standing next to the piano. Zen followed her over.

“Both of you know this one, I think,” he told them as he struck a chord and played the first measures of a song. “I know my daughter does.”

It was a popular song from the ‘80’s that most of the people in the room would know, likely, very different from the sort of thing she composed for today’s market, smooth and jazzy. Her father played the piano like he was having a fantastic time, and it was wonderful to hear, so she didn’t protest further just to please him, swayed to the rhythm while she sang. Zen joined her as she knew he would, always ready to belt something out no matter where they were.

“You really love her, don’t you, son?” Mr. Han prodded.

“Yes,” Jumin answered simply.

“Have you talked about a wedding date? I know you were planning on waiting the year but—”

Viv grinned, glancing their way. Neither of them were looking at her, thankfully, and she tried to direct her attention to the next song her father was playing.

“I should start talking about the expenses with Daesuk. I imagine you want to build a house? There’s a plot of land available near the neighborhood you grew up. There are a few other families with children in the area, also.”

“Have you been looking into this?”

“Of course. It’s my last duty as your father to make sure the start of your new life is perfect.”

“Father, I… thank you.”

Several servers began to bring out drinks and appetizers. The menu was prepared in advance so they didn’t need to order anything, thankfully. Mr. Han lead Glam to sit at the center of the table while the others gathered around. Jumin sat across from him, the rest of the guests filling in the table. Zen, Viv, and her father were the last to sit down, the she across from Glam and next to Mr. Park and Zen on his other side.

Jumin took her hand to get her attention, felt his brow press against her temple. The way he nudged her told her he wanted a kiss, and she ducked out of the way at the last second. A click of his tongue reprimanded her, but she wouldn’t let him embarrass her in front of their parents. She was the only one who cared, apparently, because Mr. Han laughed at them.

“I saw on the news about that drug scandal,” Glam started.

“Yes, are you alright, dear?” Mr. Han seemed to interject, not allowing Glam to start something again. Viv wondered when that change happened and had to school her expression to something neutral before her face gave away just how ridiculous it was. “You’ve been treated terribly.”

“This is all my fault,” her father sighed. “You don’t think about the impact your mistakes have on your family when your sole focus in life is to find your next fix. I am so, so sorry, my little meadowlark.”

“Daddy, no,” Viv tensed up. The last thing she wanted was her father to feel bad when it was Glam who had paid for the tabloid to be published in the first place. “You did nothing wrong, and you’ve been so helpful handling the press, honestly it couldn’t have gone better.”

He gave her the most apologetic look and took her hand. “What did I do to deserve such a wonderful daughter?”

“Dad, please,” she shook her head. “I’m just doing what I should.”

“Have you been able to track down who paid off the police?”

Jumin looked straight at Glam, waited until she made eye contact with him. “Yes, and I plan on making sure they regret the day they decided to harm my wife.”

Her eyes widened, it seemed she’d realized Jumin knew it was her he was going after. Then she seemed to steel herself, lips pressed in a thin line, narrowed her gaze.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Han nodded. Viv turned to look at Zen, who rose his brows at her in amusement. “All of my assets are at your disposal. I hate seeing her slandered like this.”

“You see, birdie, nothing to worry about,” her dad pat her hand between his own.

The first course was served, and Viv took the chance to change the subject. “Ms. Nadia, thank you for joining us.”

“We’re looking forward to trying your desserts,” Jumin nodded, following her lead. “You come highly recommended from a few very close friends.”

“I was told that you do not enjoy sweets, Mr. Han, so I—”

“Please, Jumin is fine.”

“Ah, it would be so rude of me,” she giggled, a wonderfully bright and twinkling sound.

“Of course not. It makes me feel like I’m at work,” he answered ruefully.

“In that case, I completely understand,” she nodded, accent as charming as could be.

“I interrupted you,” he stated apologetically. “Please continue.”

“I was just saying I took the liberty of creating desserts from my country. I hope you will them enjoy them.”

“That’s so kind of you,” Viv reached across the table to squeeze her hand in thanks. “Several of the other patisserie I’ve contacted were basically like, cake is sweet, what do you expect?”

“What country are you from, Ms. Nadia?” Mr. Han asked, turning his whole attention to her.

“I am Russian, Mr. Han.”

“How did you end up in Korea?”

“I was a model when I was young, met someone here, got married, got divorced. I had already made a life here with my pastry business, so there was no reason for me to go home,” she shrugged.

“You can’t mean that, you’re surely not a day over twenty,” he pretended to be surprised, and she laughed politely.

Viv nudged Jumin who smirked down at her then turned to Zen, held out a fist that he tapped with his own.

“So you’re the owner of Milaya?”

“Oh yes, I am.”

“Father, it is the company we use to provide our coffee shops with pastries.”

“Really?” Han grinned, adjusted in his chair to better focus on her. “I can’t believe I’ve never met you.”

The entrée was served, drawing everyone from their conversations long enough for them to break and new ones to begin.

“So,” she started, for some reason feeling very nervous to tell both of their fathers the news. “Jumin wants to get married on Valentine’s Day.”

“That’s much sooner than you originally planned,” her father seemed to happily note. “Might be difficult to plan for something that soon.”

“I’m not surprised,” Mr. Han laughed. “When Jumin wants something, he has no patience at all.”

“Valentine’s was a compromise, too, at first he suggested Christmas.”

Mr. Park leaned into his daughter’s shoulder, whispering loud enough for the entire table to hear. “Are you pregnant already?”

“Dad!”

“No?” he sighed dejectedly. “Damn.”

“ _Dad!_ We haven’t– we haven’t–“ her face blazed. His brows rose knowingly, “—talked about an ideal timeline for children yet.”

Jumin tucked a finger under her chin and lead her to him with a smirk, nudging their noses. “We can start now.”

“Jumin!” she hissed, yanking back in embarrassment as he and their parents laughed at her. She tucked her face in her hands and hid. “I hate all of you.”

“Do you think it can be done?” Jumin turned his attention back to their fathers.

“Of course, son, anything you’d like,” Mr. Han nodded his head enthusiastically.

“I imagine Jumin would simply do what he wants, anyway,” Mr. Park laughed. “From the moment he was born.”

“Isn’t that the truth? I have such a stubborn son.”

“Father—"

“It begs to be asked when we should have our wedding,” Glam cut in, getting Mr. Han’s attention again.

“My son’s wedding is my first priority.” His eyes were briefly brought back to Nadia, before looking at Glam again. “We’ve done this before, haven’t we? No need to rush.”

“Yes, however—”

“It’s two months. For a wedding this soon, it will take every spare moment everyone has to make sure it’s absolutely perfect. You can be patient, can’t you, Glam? We’ll talk about it again after that.”

“Just because they’re getting married doesn’t mean we have to postpone our plans,” she almost sneered, clearly making an effort of staying calm.

“Glam, we will speak on the matter later,” he shut down that line of conversation with a bit of a stern look. She seemed to deflate somewhat, then nodded. “How are the renovations on the penthouse going?”

“Just fine,” Jumin shrugged. “I’ve decided to expand to the next floor. There was a condo I was considering refurbishing to sell, but considering we need the space, we’ll be taking it over instead. It’s quite the task. I doubt it will be finished by the wedding. I do feel awful that my love only has half the closet space she needs.”

Viv shook her head. “Seriously, it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Always sweet and practical, my Sujin,” Jumin praised softly, thumbing away food caught at the edge of her mouth. “I wonder if I should hire a second chauffeur to make sure you get to work safely. The press has been hanging outside the building for us in the morning since she moved in. With Carpe Diem’s popularity skyrocketing and our upcoming wedding, I doubt anyone will be leaving us alone any time soon.”

“Would you stop doting on me? It’s weird.”

He grinned. She’d realized a long time ago that he loved to be affectionate to her in public simply because she hated it.

“I can wipe my own mouth, Jumin, _Jesus Christ!”_

Several people around her laughed and she sighed. At least they were getting a kick out of Jumin being completely uncharacteristic.

“Zen and Miss Kang are also helping Suji plan the wedding while I take care of the renovations for the penthouse, plus getting Suji’s condo ready for sale.” He paused, nodded to Zen in a small bow of thanks. “I am ever grateful for the assistance.”

“Your Assistant Kang?” his father asked, “She is rather skilled at her job, isn’t she? I will contact her about payment, then.”

“Father, it is unnecessary –”

“Of course it’s necessary, that’s our job as parents. Save the money to put away for the ivy league schools your several children will be attending,” Mr. Park laughed. “Besides, imagine if we didn’t pay for it and the investors got wind of that! We would be on the chopping block for sure!”

Mr. Han howled with laughter, as if the prospect of losing the CEO seat because of not paying for his son’s wedding was hilarious. “It’s true! That old Kim and Nam would really kick me out on my ass, then, wouldn’t they!”

The laughed until Mr. Park began to cough, where Viv tried to push him to drink some water that he refused.

Nadia was the one who spoke up next. “It seems most of us are finished eating. I will prepare the dessert. Please excuse me.”

Nadia stood and left the dining room.

“I’m so excited!” Viv clapped her hands together.

Her father suddenly grasped her hand. “I’m sorry, birdie, I am quite lightheaded. Let me just…”

“Here, drink some water, I’ve been trying to get you to— Daddy, you’ve barely touched your food!” she worriedly pressed a glass of water into his hand and helped him hold it, as he didn’t seem to be able to grip the glass.

“I was fine a few moments ago, I’m sure this will pass.”

She shushed him and helped him drink finally. The rest of the table had gone quiet. Zen had placed a hand on his other shoulder to keep him stable.

“Mr. Park, are you sure you’re ok? Does your stomach feel bad or something?”

“No, I, uh, did not have much of an appetite. That’s normal for me these days.”

Zen and Viv exchanged worried glances, and he looked up at Jumin. She began to ramble. “Why don’t we find you a place to lay down? Some sugar might do you some good, you know you could be having a blood sugar drop since you haven’t been eating much.”

“Zen, my boy, that is… a bit painful, could you—”

“Y-your arm, Sir?”

“Dad, how long has your arm hurt?”

His head shook. “A few days?”

“And you played the piano earlier?”

“I figured if I ignored it, it would go away.”

“Jumin, help me get him somewhere he can lay down,” Zen said, quietly. She heard the squeak of his chair against the floor as he followed Zen’s command with no hesitation.

“Zen?”

“Mr. Park, is your chest tight? Or like, there’s pressure on your chest? Is it hard to breathe?”

“Ah,” Park tried to breathe deeply. “A bit, but it feels like that fairly often. Lung damage and all that,” he chuckled with a watery smile.

“Zen?” she repeated. “What’s going on?”

“Call an ambulance.”

“Tell me—”

“—just listen, alright, Viv? Call. Now.”

“Alright, ok.”

Zen was never so serious, so she took out her phone and made the call, telling the dispatcher the necessary information for them to send out an ambulance. She moved out of the way while she heard Zen gently tell her father they were going to move him, and it might hurt, but he’ll be ok. Once he was moved and settled, Zen joined her where she had moved away from the group while Jumin sat with her father, the quiet murmur of an one-sided conversation hummed in her ear. Nadia fortunately had returned, distracting the other guests with her pretty accent, pretty face, and pretty desserts.

With a deep sigh, Zen wrapped his arms around her shoulders and tugged her into his chest.

“I’m right here, babe, I’ve got you. Come on, breathe for me.”

She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath, that a black haze had begun to creep in the edges of her vision. This was the wrong time to have a panic attack, really. Viv listened to his instructions carefully, focused on just breathing for a few minutes, feeling Zen’s chest rise and fall a comfort in itself.

“Are you here with me?” he asked after a few moments.

“Yeah, yeah I’m ok.”

Viv looked up as he let her go to look at her face to face, features in hardened lines etched in stone. His hands arrived at her shoulders and he just watched her for a moment as if he was debating actually telling her, but shook his head just slightly to express his despondency.

“I need you calm, ok, jagiya?”

She took another deep breath and nodded. “I’m calm.”

“Suji, your dad is having a heart attack.”

 

 

***

 

 

_{wish}_

_[iu – through the night]_

_I made a wish, the stars were too far,_  
_I thought there was so much I needed._  
 _I know I can’t tell you what I wished for…_  
 _Dismissed, ignored, I’m not sure –_  
 _all I knew was wishes don’t come true._

_I had missed your smile in the clouds_  
_Don’t tell me what you’ve wished for_  
 _they say it won’t come true (did you wish on a star, too?)_  
 _You were always right beside me_  
 _and all along I was waiting here for you_

_When you wish upon a star…_

_stand under the circle of the moon,_  
_smell the dew-laden night air,_  
 _close your eyes and breathe,_  
 _breathe,_  
 _breathe…_  
 _then make your dream come true_

_Stand under the starless sky_  
_feel the night’s cool kiss on your skin_  
 _close your eyes and breathe,_  
 _breathe,_  
 _breathe…_  
 _then make your dream come true_

_When the sky doesn’t shine…  
know a star’s magic is in you_

Jumin glanced into the living room where Viv and her father were sitting, she with a guitar on her lap and he taking up the entire couch with a tangle of clear tubes and a hundred pieces of notation paper. He leaned his weight against the doorframe while he checked his phone for messages from Assistant Kang, keeping an ear open to the conversation between the nutritionist and his personal chef. His vision was obscured from time to time to the guest room as the live-in nurse set up equipment, directing a mover where to place the fridge and additional canisters of oxygen.

Viv’s lilting voice wrapped around him like a warm blanket, soft and comforting as she sang and strummed her fingers over the strings of the acoustic guitar, lightly tapping her nails against the body on the second and fourth beat of each measure, creating a percussive backbone for the song. Mr. Park often directed one thing or another, asking her to move the key, change a chord, or flip completely into falsetto. The nurse was sitting on the bed, smiling to herself as she listened, pouring over paperwork while the fridge was installed.

The nutritionist seemed to just be leaving, and Mr. Pierre bowed somewhat as he wandered past, in his hand several pages covered in hand-written unreadable text. The Frenchman paused in the doorway with Jumin, seeming to open his mouth to say something, glanced into the living room, rethink it, and open it a second time to say something else.

“Monsieur Han, will you be joining Monsieur Park for dinner this evening?”

That was hard to say, actually. He’d already moved many of his appointments around – his evening was booked with overtime at the office. He’d hoped that Assistant Kang would be able to put together materials so that he could work here for the time being, but he wasn’t sure she’d be able to do that. Would it be rude to arrive late and reheat dinner? Jumin almost visibly frowned. At the end of the day, it was likely that Viv would end up going into the office late herself. Kenji would need her to come in.

He sighed. “I am going to plan on eating here, yes. I suspect that will be much easier on you.”

“I appreciate the consideration, Monsieur Han. I will be heading to the store to purchase ingredients. If you need me I will be here most of the day. Excusé moi while I speak to Madame Nurse for a moment.”

With a mutual nod of the head, Mr. Pierre stepped around him to lightly knock at the nurse’s door, then entered the room at her welcome, quietly discussing Mr. Park’s diet. Jumin looked back down at his phone, finding several emails from Assistant Kang with notes from various meetings that morning and scans of documents for him to approve.

He'd have to give Assistant Kang a raise. She was a god-send.

The group chat among Assistant Kang, Viv, and Carpe Diem’s members was flooded with concern and well-wishes, asking over and over for various ways they could help.

And then there was one message that made his heart tighten in his chest to see:

**[Jihyun Kim 9:23am]** Hey, I know I haven’t kept in touch. I saw Sujin’s Father is sick. Is everything alright?

Jumin didn’t know how to answer. He turned to look in the living room again, his eyes scanning the pair as Viv shuffled pages of notation paper. The hand with the phone pressed against his chest as he watched, or rather, intensely observed, the delicate interaction between father and daughter. He heard the soft rattle of Mr. Park’s lungs as he breathed through each word, something he hadn’t paid much attention to before, the stress etched into Viv’s features as she tried to ignore when he uncomfortably adjusted the plastic tubing of the oxygen tank in his nose. The way her smile didn’t light up her face when she looked at the pages in her hands.

Would this be the last song they wrote together?

**[Jumin Han 12:35pm]** She could use your support.

A reply came almost immediately.

**[Jihyun Kim 12:35pm]** I am not sure it would be right for me to see her.  
**[Jumin Han 12:36pm]** Why?  
**[Jihyun Kim 12:39pm]** I’d abandoned both of you.  
**[Jumin Han 12:41pm]** At the moment none of that matters. You’re the one who will know how she feels the most.  
**[Jihyun Kim 12:45pm]** I

The message stopped there, the wave of the gradient from one dot to the next of the stylized ellipsis disappeared. Jumin sighed, not sure if he had the wherewithal to deal with this at the moment. Not with Viv’s voice a bit too thick in her throat and a bit too inconsistent to ignore. It was so slight, so very slight, each time her voice wavered a fraction of a semitone off its note, it made his throat close just a little tighter.

Mr. Pierre left. The nurse, who introduced herself as Mari, removed and replaced two different sized bags of fluids to the port in Mr. Park’s arm, took his blood pressure, oxygen levels, and various other vitals, before retreating into her room to leave the pair alone.

Jumin sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes, schooled his expression, rolled and pulled down his shoulders, then carefully and slowly exhaled. Only after he was sure he’d composed himself, he entered the living room properly, taking a seat next to Viv on the foot rest she was sitting on. She had that glassy look in her eyes, like she was about to cry. When he finally took the step to tune into the conversation, he completely understood why.

“It’s a lot to ask, I know, birdie, but –“

“Dad, you’re going to get better and I’m sure you’re going to –“

“Birdie,” Mr. Park hushed her, gently as he could with the dark rumble of that ever so soft wheezing deep in his chest. Jumin took a deep breath, as if he could breathe for the man. “I’m may not get better, birdie.”

“Daddy, _please_ –“

“We have to discuss this, you must be prepared when—”

“Can it just not be now, please? Can we just focus on you getting better now?”

“My precious girl,” he looked so apologetic, so sad. “I know I promised you I’d be here for you… I’m so sorry.”

Pages of music notes slipped onto the floor, floating across the hard wood, fluttered until they ended up under the piano and the couch. Jumin had turned himself to wrap his other arm protectively around her shoulders when she’d covered her face in her hands, letting her curl into him and hide. He sighed, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Take care of her for me, Jumin,” Mr. Park quietly requested. His lips upturned in a smile despite himself, apologetically.

“You have my word.” Jumin made sure to look him in the eye, even though his own vision had blurred.

 

 

***

 

 

“There was something I thought I should tell you,” Viv said. 

Yoosung tugged on his scarf and lifted it so that it covered his nose as they stepped outside. He took her bag from her, as a gentleman he would never want to be caught dead with a woman carrying around a heavy bag and the media labeling him an ungrateful brat.

“Well, there are a few things, I guess.”

He remained quiet, letting her continue. Plus, if he spoke his scarf would come down. Not that his blonde hair and telltale clip in his bangs didn’t give him away. Instead he hummed sort of like Jumin did to tell her to go on.

“I wanted to ask if you would be comfortable performing for our wedding. Zen and Seven want to make sure you’re ok with it before, you know, committing to something.” She glanced over at him. Yoosung’s eyes went wide. “I think it would be super sweet for the procession, uh, have you three go down the isle first and set up and such.”

Again he said nothing, as her head tilted back and she looked up at the sky, Viv stuffed her hands in her pockets after being relieved of her work bag. Her breath clouded around her, face red, likely from the cold.

“I mean, with everything going on Jumin asked Jaehee to be our wedding planner, but I bet Jumin would make sure whatever I want was done exactly the way I’d asked even without one,” she laughed, puffs trailing as she lulled her head to the side to look up at him.

“Yeah, Jumin would make absolutely sure you got everything you wanted.”

“That’s what I’m worried about, especially now, considering the circumstances,” she grinned, stopping to pause at the front of a building. Yoosung recognized it as her father’s condo, and he looked up too, as if he could possibly see how her dad was doing just by looking up at the right window, if he knew which one it was. “If he was a control freak before, his need to control things makes him put a vice grip on stuff when he’s stressed.”

“At least it’s not another cat project that’s doomed to fail.”

“At least there’s that!” she laughed, and it was a little bit brighter than the last, enough to encourage him.

Maybe he really was helping her just by being here, like she’d said he would when she’d called him out that day.

“I have to write vows somehow,” she continued. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Just tell him how you feel, that’s what vows are about, right?”

“We have already said our vows to each other, honestly. When the dads betrothed us. I wonder if that promise means more or less nowadays.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, a promise to fill the place of a promise that had finally been fulfilled.”

“What was that?”

She got this silly, shy smile on her face. “When we were kids, we promised each other we’d get married.” Then she laughed, almost as if the whole thing was absurd. But it made sense to him, Jumin and Sujin were _something_ , even though it didn’t have a label. Definitely more than friends, at least. “It’s amazing that it actually worked out that way in the end, isn’t it? But now I have to perform this promise-making thing and it just doesn’t feel… genuine anymore.”

“You’re such a great songwriter, though, that can’t be true,” he tried to comfort her, but she looked up at him like the much older woman she was, and her incredulous stare made him back down. He’d been around her for long enough to know that she fumbled with what she wanted to say a lot, and the songs she wrote were how she expressed herself. “I mean, why don’t you just write songs instead?”

“I kind of was thinking just that, actually. But it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“I think Jumin would really like it. I mean,” Yoosung adjusted the bag over his shoulder. It was stupidly heavy. What was in it? Yikes. “He would know how much it meant to you. He knows you the best out of all of us, after all.”

“You’re probably right. It’s sort of what I do best after all…” she laughed self-depreciatingly.

“Seriously, it would be super sweet. At least I think so.”

“Thanks, pup.” That time he didn’t have the heart to protest the decade old nickname, especially if it brought her comfort when he couldn’t physically. Usually he’d just hug her or something, seeing her like this. The subject skipped to something else entirely, then. “Zen already told me I’d probably have to deal with the set list, though I wondered about just bringing in a DJ instead for the reception. If we have a reception.”

“Isn’t that a western thing mostly?” He leaned forward, trying to peer at the face that she had turned in a direction he couldn’t see.

Her head bobbed in affirmation. “I was thinking that everyone who our parents invite that are there because of business bullshit is probably going to leave after the ceremony and the people left would likely be our friends who actually care about us? It would be nice to celebrate with people who like us or something.”

Yoosung cringed. “Yikes“

“We probably won’t have a whole _lot_ of control of what happens since the dads are paying for everything. Tradition and all that. If the other executives found out, Han would be ridiculed.”

“Sounds hard.”

“I just don’t want to end up with a bunch of people who hate us at our own wedding. I’ll see what I can get away with without getting into a fight.”

“You and Jumin fighting? I can’t imagine it.”

That made her laugh again and Yoosung smiled behind his scarf. She seemed sort of sad, but then again, her Father was _very_ ill and she wasn’t able to be with him. He didn’t have to ask her to know that it made her feel like a horrible daughter.

“You should have seen us when we were kids. I think my nicknames for him were ‘jackass’ and ‘piece of shit’ in middle school. He used to just roll his eyes at me and continue talking like it didn’t matter. I can’t remember if I’d call him by his actual name at that age.”

“No wonder you two are so close.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Anyway, do you think you’d be ok with performing at our wedding? It’s ok to say no, by the way.”

“Obviously.” He took down his scarf to show her his smile. She then smiled herself, the real one he was so familiar with. “You’re like, my sister, and this is… a really important day. If I can do something to make it special for you two, I’d like to do that.”

“Thanks, Pup. You’re the best little brother I could ask for,” her hand squeezed his shoulder, and then she pulled back, swinging her whole torso to look down at her foot. “I have a solo piece I want you to sing.”

“No way,” he could feel his face blaze. “There’s no way.”

“You can, you’re ready. I know you can. You see, Yoosung, there’s a purity about you that I…” her voice dropped out and she sighed, shook her head.

He wished she would just finish what she had to say.

She was looking at her phone, and then glanced back up at the building before jerking her head for him to follow her and continue walking down the street, a whispered string of curses under her breath. “There’s a coffee shop here. Do you want to stop there for lunch?”

“Sure, anywhere is fine with me.”

“You’re not supposed to just say fine to anything. Aren’t you actually hungry?”

That small scolding put him more at ease. It was more like her. “I mean, sure I’m hungry but –“

“For fuck’s sake.” She looked back and forth then rushed across the street. Yoosung found himself almost screaming after her but following after several cars sped by.

“Oh my god don’t do that!”

She nodded to the fried chicken place they were suddenly standing in front of, completely ignoring him scolding her, like she usually did. “This better?”

“Yeah, it’s better,” he laughed, completely freaked out and not really in the mental place to be able to confront her about it but somehow relieved that she was being relatively normal, following her inside and shedding their winter gear while they took a seat towards the inside of the small restaurant, away from windows. They ordered and Viv sighed, plopping her elbows down on the table with a sound that seemed like it hurt. He didn’t want to bring up what was bothering her, wanting to avoid it, to be honest, but he didn’t want her to keep going on like this either.

“Listen, Yoosung, I, um.” She sucked in a deep breath and leaned up to shuffle around in her pockets, pulling out a worn piece of paper. “I didn’t ever think I would do this. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.”

“It’s alright, Viv,” he tried to reassure her, sensing it was something about that piece of paper that was barely holding together between her fingers. She was looking down at it and rubbing her fingers over it, as if she was nervous.

“This is Rika’s phone number, or, it should be,” she whispered. “The phone I gave her is still active. I still pay the bill every month. I know it gets used. I guess I could have the carrier track it down, or have someone else do it but… I’ve never wanted to take away what she needed by invading her privacy like that.”

He felt his heartbeat double. He was too shocked to form questions, even though he wanted to ask her everything that popped into his head. The blaze of anger in him was instant, why hadn’t she told him about this earlier? But he was too old for this reactionary sort of thing now and held himself from yelling at her. Yoosung instead formed fists with his hands that he squeezed until it hurt, the pain distracting enough to calm him down.

Yoosung took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Viv seemed to be paying attention to him closely enough that she didn’t continue until he breathed normally again.

“Right now, I need them so badly that… I almost called and tried to convince her to come back,” she gave him this self-depreciating smile. “Then I thought about you, and how I’ve withheld stuff from you when you’ve needed them. I thought I was doing the right thing then, but now… I’m not so sure.”

“Just… what happened?” he finally managed, swallowing hard.

“I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone, so not even Jumin knows. I mean, she knew I would tell him if I needed to bail her out of some trouble but…” she sighed. “Basically, when Rika left two years ago, I helped her leave. I gave her a cell that I’ve been paying for and a credit card without a limit in my name.”

He felt his heart choke him. His throat closed, he was barely able to rasp out, “Why would you do that?”

Her head shook. “I gave her the tools to do what she wanted, I trusted her to know what she needed. I believed she was just a step away from finding what that was. That maybe we were holding her back, somehow. I’m waiting for her to come home on her own. I feel like it’s selfish of anyone to call her home when she needs space, but, here I am.”

She reached out to take his hand and pressed the paper into it. The only thing it that was on it was ‘Rika’ and a string of numbers.

“I think I can trust you with this now… and I need it out of my hands because I don’t trust myself with it anymore.”

“Do you know why she felt like she needed to leave?” he asked, stunned, the heavy press of responsibility on his shoulders like a ten-thousand ton weight.

“She hated herself, Yoosung,” she replied, frowning. “She really, truly, completely hated herself. She’d always tell me that she had ‘darkness’ inside her, that she had to get rid of it for her to be worth something. First, she thought God’s love would heal it, and then she thought Jiji’s love could heal it… then she realized she didn’t want to kill that part of her and couldn’t reconcile herself as someone worthy of love if it existed… she began to search for someone who would accept it. It took a long time for her to realize that she was the one who needed to accept it or get rid of it. She couldn’t do that here with us, sheltering her all the time.”

“But she was so wonderful…”

“I know. But that’s not how mental illnesses work. I wish I could give you more information, maybe a real diagnosis and treatment, but I’m not a doctor and all I would be doing is speculating based on internet searches. I doubt that would help.”

Their orders came and she all but ignored her food. Yoosung found he wasn’t really that hungry anymore either. They both forced down something in silence.

Her voice wafted over the table, a small question. “Did she ever tell you what happened to her as a kid? What your parents thought of her?”

He sucked in a breath. The answer to that question was no, and somewhat. He knew his parents said they wished they had never taken her in, saying she was difficult and talked about her running with crowds that were a bad influence on their family’s reputation, making her believe she could be something she wasn’t. That she had his aunt and uncle in her and there was nothing they could do to make her better.

“No, Rika would never want you to think badly of her, that’s the kind of person she was,” Viv smiled when he was silent for a while, tilting her head at him, fondness in her eyes for him.

It was odd how he could feel so many emotions in the span of minutes, the warmth that was brought about knowing Rika regarded him so… a feeling that it would make even Viv be this… gentle. The rollercoaster of being angry, sad, wanting to blame and direct hate at, and being grateful towards Viv, being comforted by the softness of her in this moment – it was equal parts astounding and nauseating.

“I want you to know, no matter what, she loves you, Yoosung.”

“I just wish she hadn’t left me,” he confided sadly, at almost a whisper, with embarrassment. “Well, I guess she needed to leave but… I wish she had told me.”

“She was protecting you. Myself, Jihyun, Jumin... We knew that you would blame yourself for not being what she needed, you’d think it was your actions that drove her away… we thought it would be kinder in the end. That’s why Jihyun would never tell you his side of the story. He wanted you to blame him instead of yourself.”

All of these things they’d done with him in mind, when all he’d wanted was to know the truth. He wondered if they were right. A couple months ago, he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to handle this.

“I’m sorry,” her voice cracked just enough for him to notice, and panic rose up his throat. He couldn’t handle her crying right now. “I promised her I would take care of you. It seems I’ve done a poor job of that.”

“Viv, please,” he grasped the hand that she rose to touch his cheek, “I’m a grown man, I can take care of myself.”

She chuckled, nodded, “Yes, you are, aren’t you, Yoosung?”

He swallowed down the knot in his throat and tried to will away the heat in his face that told him he looked just as wrecked as she did. Yoosung tucked the paper away in the inside breast pocket of his coat so that he didn’t lose it, as it had a zipper that made it more secure. Then he drank his whole glass of water to attempt to cool down his face more, during which the wait staff came back Viv paid the bill and asked them to pack everything up for him to take home. “Viv –“

“I have to go back to work,” she told him, with a bit of a sheepish smile, standing from the table and shrugging on her coat. “Then I have to meet Jumin after, then we’re going to have dinner with Dad.”

“Yeah, you’re always crazy busy,” he nodded, not really sure what else to say, his mind still consumed by too-honest words and his heart half-hopeful and half-broken. “Thanks for trusting me with this, Viv.”

“Hey,” she smiled, and it was a real one that lit up her teary face. It calmed his overactive heart, loosened the grip that was squeezing it somewhat. Her hand on his shoulder as she stood next to him, looked down at him… he didn’t need her to continue, he just touched her hand, laced their fingers together, and bowed his head to their combined fists. She didn’t try to move away, and he was grateful for the patience that was so uncharacteristic of her.

Yoosung might have forgotten himself a bit once they got outside. Maybe it was his desire to self-comfort, maybe it was the deeply resonant aura of sadness she was radiating, maybe it was his desire to protect the trust she’d put in him.

He’d just draped his arm over her shoulder and sort of led her back to the studio building while she was on her phone so that she didn’t need to pay too much attention to the roads and people around her. Part of him realized he wanted to protect her, and without Jumin there and her father not answering his phone (she’d stopped and stared up at her father’s condo for a long moment while the phone rang in her ear), he didn’t know what else to do.

Except, it attracted trouble, not surprisingly. Yoosung mentally scolded himself.

Viv was obviously not ready for it. He knew it when it happened, when Yoosung was a bit too late pushing her behind him and stepping between a mic being shoved in her face and someone asking a rude question about their relationship, he was a bit too stunned when he heard her utter ‘ _for fuck’s sake’_ with a half-dozen media personnel creating a circle around them.

“Listen to me, you piece of shit –“

He tried to grab her shoulders and move her behind him when she stepped forward, a finger out and jabbing angrily into someone’s chest, but for being much shorter than him she was strong. Or she was angry and he was intimidated. Both was likely true, if he’d admit it to himself.

“My father almost died three days ago and I haven’t been able to get in touch with him for the past six hours, and I’m trying to keep my shit together while I take care of my father’s business because that’s what he’d want me to do.”

And then tears were streaming down her face and he didn’t know what to do, and several other people lowered mics and cameras and Yoosung barely heard what she was saying over his own pleading that they leave.

“The members of Carpe Diem are the some of the best friends Jumin and I could ever ask for, and I will be _damned_ if I allow your trash news outlets drag them through the mud for helping me through this, when I need them most, do you understand that? _I will do everything I can to fucking crush you if you hurt my friends, I promise you!”_

When she’d started screaming, the shock of it startled him out of his frozen half-attempts to pacify her so that he could grab her with enough force to pull her into his chest, where she immediately began to sob.

Yoosung couldn’t think of anything else to do but to wrap his arms over her shoulders as tightly and protectively as he could, casting a glance at all the people who were standing there, stunned at her reaction. With the small clearing of his throat, he pulled courage up from the base of his stomach, took a moment to make sure he wasn’t going to just vomit from sheer nerves, and looked each of them in the eye.

“Could you please leave now?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes about Falsetto:
> 
> There is an argument about whether or not falsetto can only be performed by men. Some vocal experts define it as the man's head voice, where the woman's head voice is just considered "head voice", while modern vocal experts define falsetto as a technique where the vocal chords do not touch at all, which is something both men and women do while singing. The head voice in both men and women still "connect", as in, the vocal chords come together while singing. I am using falsetto in the manner of technique according to modern experts.


	13. Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dear friend finally comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {Moon} is inspired by [IU's Ending Scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh5ok0ljrzA)

It still smelled of heat and smoke, despite her room being the least damaged of the whole estate. Su led him through the rubble, not letting go of his hand for a moment. He tried to keep his eyes closed, tried to follow her without breathing, to not relive it again.

“We’ll only stay as long as you want, alright?” Su reassured him, having taken his other hand, thumbs smoothing over the back of them. “We’ll do this together, ok?”

“Thank you, Suji.”

“Please,” she fussed, that round little face scrunching with frustration. “You take care of me every day. This is the least, the very least, I can do to help you.”

She held onto his hands even as he lifted them to cup her face in his palms, drawing her to him to kiss her forehead. He hadn’t done that in years, hadn’t allowed himself to be this close to her when he knew his best friend had such a profound crush on her. Jumin would understand, would forgive him for needing her now.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, Jiji.”

Finally he allowed himself to take a look around the room, pulling Sujin into his arms and holding her to him as if she could protect his heart from being hurt from the sight. She let him, the girl so much like a little sister that she might as well share his blood, simply wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her hands to his back, kept him close.

Black smoke had darkened the ceiling in large patches near the door, ornate wallpaper peeled and curled where the glue had melted before the paper caught fire, hardwood floors charred where the flames from below had burned through, its lacquered treatment preventing it from bursting into flames and creating smoldered holes instead.

“It was a gas leak. The chef turned on the stove and… I was downstairs,” he began, throat tight.

He could barely take a breath, despite the window being open to help circulation, to let in the warmth of the spring. He hadn’t been able to tell anyone what happened.

“I don’t know how she could tell. She wouldn’t have heard the sound. I’d fallen asleep doing homework and… I guess the smoke kept me knocked out.”

Her head tilted back to look up at him, her little hands making fists in his shirt, pulling even tighter, reassuring.

She wouldn’t let him go.

“She tried to carry me,” he tried to laugh, it was absurd, he was taller, heavier, but what came out was a strangled cough, the best attempt at keeping back his tears. “I think when she realized she couldn’t lift me, she’d resorted to dragging me outside. I woke up for just a moment, it’s so blurry, fragmented… my whole body was burning, my eyes, my skin, it felt as if my blood was boiling… the wood cracked and split, flames hissed as if it was at my ears.”

He shook his head.

“The faint scent of her perfume masked the fumes. She’d used her shirt to wrap over my nose and mouth and she probably used all her strength…”

He swallowed, closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself.

“When I woke up in the hospital… she was already gone.”

She sighed, he felt it where she was tightly bound to him. “You’re going to be okay one day, Jiji, and it’s okay that isn’t going to be anytime soon. Just remember that, okay?”

Times like these he marveled at the maturity of his fourteen-year-old friend, wondered where in her that this wisdom lived and how it came about.

“Tell me you’ll remember that it’s okay to be hurt…”

“Yes, I’ll remember…”

Jihyun had to work to silence the echo of blame that bounced around his head again, pressed it into the corner of his mind so that it would stop its onslaught of guilt. It always came back out, and he’d have to shut it away again.

“Let’s see if we can find something,” Su said after a long moment of silently holding him, letting him feel her heartbeat against his chest. “You can just sit here, and we’ll talk.”

Jihyun nodded, let her guide him to the foot board of the bed, mostly untouched other than its grey dusting of soot, and sat on the floor with his back pressed to it. Su was reluctant to leave him, hovered in the anxious way that she did when she was worried, stalling by looking around instead of moving around.

“See if you can find something and I’ll… we’ll talk,” he told her, parroted back to her, he couldn’t just let himself burden her with so much sadness.

“Yeah,” she answered absently.

A dresser, a desk, the closet, the bed with its side tables. Two chairs and a small table at the window. Atop the dresser were several things, blackened, the desk and the table was back to the farthest wall, away from the fire damage.

“Counter clock wise,” she said, quietly, and stepped forward to the dresser. Delicate touches from fingers experienced with handling fragile, precious things, pushed open small wood and enamel boxes. Her lips pursed to blow the heavy soot away, and when that didn’t work, she used the silk handkerchief from her school uniform’s pocket. Oh, she’d get in so much trouble for that, he knew, those silly squares were expensive to replace, the price was marked up for their school’s insignia being embroidered on it.

“You remember these, Jiji? We each got them for our moms for mother’s day when we were kids. Look, she kept yours.”

She presented the enamel box with a necklace in it, a pendant with ‘mother’ written in a fancy script and enclosed in a heart. It was cheap, thin metal plated gold. He smiled at the memory, when they skipped class in elementary school so their parents wouldn’t know about their adventure to the mall all by themselves to purchase their gifts.

“I’m not a mom, so I don’t know if I should keep this,” he tried to joke, pushing it back to her hands.

“But she’s your mom, plus this was special to you both. You should keep everything of her that you can.”

He wasn’t expecting her to take it so seriously, but he appreciated that she did for him. That she cared enough to encourage him. They were only there because his father was going to have the estate torn down soon, anything left inside would be lost forever.

“You’re right, I want to keep it.”

She opened the drawers, one after the other, a hand searching among her clothing. Su took out a familiar sweater, dark beige and knitted, wrapped it around her shoulders. It made him smile to see it so large on her, the hem to her knees and she needed to push the sleeves up to expose her hands again.

“Do you remember this sweater?”

“She wore it for our violin lessons often. And church, because it was cold.”

“It was her favorite, I think. It sort of smells like smoke but not much, a good wash will get it out… do you want to put it on?”

“Could I?”

“Jiji, you can have anything you want,” she smiled softly for him, taking off the plush fabric and draping it over his shoulders. She helped his arms into the sleeves even though they were much too short, hugged him for a moment as he pulled it to wrap himself up.

The desk drawer, opened and closed. Piles of paper held down with a large quartz that she set aside to rifle through the pages. Paper she handled with the utmost care, found something to pin them together and brought them over. He was surprised to find it was sheet music, a decent sized pile of it. The closet was examined but primarily held more clothing, except for a shoebox that she brought out and set next to him. After gathering a few more things, she returned, pushing the stuff now surrounding him to sit as close as she could, to sit where he could feel her warmth, touch her skin.

He leaned his head on her shoulder, linked their arms together. Jihyun never knew the need to feel another person the way he did now, to know he was alive, that she was. He felt like he would crumble if she left him now.

“There’s a lot here.”

“Mostly small things, like jewelry and stuff. Things you can pass on to your kids one day, Jiji,” she grinned, putting the several similar items together in the enamel box. A few rings, a necklace, a pair of earrings. “I think this is the most important,” she tapped the lid of the shoebox.

“Do you know what’s in there?”

“Her journals. I didn’t want to touch them without you.”

“I don’t know if I can handle that alone.”

“Do you want me to read them?”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

She lifted the lid of the box, took out the top leather covered notebook and carefully peeled it open. He waited, fiddling with the other things that she’d found. The few gifts that he’d gotten her, mother’s day or her birthday, were all there, usually some kind of jewelry. A necklace that he knew belonged to his grandmother, a signet ring that belonged to his grandfather, both who had passed before he had a chance to know them. Pieces of time lost, fractions of a moment that he would never know in his hands.

“ _I met my son today.”_

He looked up at her, his mouth opening to stop her. Surely, nothing in there about him could be good.

_“The story starts on a rainy day several weeks ago. The little girl Sujin is a young lady now, my son and his friend Jumin almost men themselves. I am not sure why they came by, someone on staff must know but I will likely not hear of it, and I suppose that is fine. She came to me on her own, pressed a piece of paper in my hands and looked at me with such brightness in her eyes and a smile on her lips. The way she ran back down the stairs told me she’d been called for, stopping short at my door to wave goodbye._

_Such a brief, significant meeting._

_The sheet in my hand was a flier for their band’s concert. Of course, I did not know of their band, of course I was elated to find that he’d created this group with his friends. That is where my happiness ended. She knows that I am deaf, I am sure she knows how useless it would be for me to attend such an event. I would be an embarrassment to my son, I thought, but something told me to go anyway. Oh, how I have been selfish, to do something for myself that would be so traumatizing for my son to have just a glimpse of him…._

_That concert is the one I just returned from._

_Rhythms vibrated through the floor, from the bottom of my foot to the tips of my hair. Beats of his drums reverberated in my chest, in my bones. A defibrillator for my shuddering heart, the deep resonance of the beats he’d played rejuvenated the thrum of my soul. For an hour and a half, he told me a more about himself than I have known for the past decade – his fears and triumphs, passions, pride, worries. Stories of his loneliest nights and his brightest days. We walked the path together, he led me through a swamp to clear water, then left me to bask on the white sands of the ocean. How does one experience all these things simply with vibration?_

_And so, here I am trying to find the words to describe the young man I met today. No, I did not speak to him, and yet it seems as we’d had a conversation, or rather he spoke to me through the music. He is different from the one who sits beside his father, back straight and silently obedient. He is different from the scared artist I’d tried to nurture. He is not the Jihyun I know._

_In the seat behind the drum set he shines like the sun, smiling bright and warm, at home in his skin, his heart open and soaring. I am relieved, soothed by the light of him._

_I’ve ignored the hums of melodies in my ear, created by my mind to occupy my time. I’d thought it a punishment, to taunt me with something I long for and cannot have. Even after all these years, they remain to torture my soul. Only now I’ve realized this is a blessing, that I have something to give. I have resolved to record these melodies, and perhaps he’ll bless me by playing them. For the first time in years, we will be sharing a song.”_

There was nothing to do, nothing to say. She wasn’t here to thank, she wasn’t here to hug and kiss and say ‘I love you, too, Mom’, she wasn’t here to tell it was ok and to not worry anymore. He didn’t deserve her, never knew her, didn’t know how to keep her.

“I’ve never told my mother that I loved her,” he confessed, both hands pressed over his face as if that would help stop the deluge of tears streaming down his face in shame. “I never knew this is how she thought of me, I never gave her the time she deserved.”

“Jiji, she already knew that you loved her,” Su tried to soothe, setting aside the notebook and setting her hands on his shoulders to guide him back to her.

Perhaps for the first time in his life he whined, “I want my mom.”

He plopped his face down on her lap and just sobbed, gross and loud, drooling and snot dripping and red-faced. Sujin rubbed his back and waited until it was out, the despair that he’d been holding back this whole time stained her school skirt and thankfully she didn’t say one word about it. She just let him cry. Jihyun had never done this before, had never been this hurt before, and it burned in his chest like the flames that had taken her, continuing to feed on the air in his lungs despite the fire having been put out weeks ago.

Jihyun wasn’t sure he would ever look at life the same way again.

“What do I do now?” he asked meekly, once his heaving subsided. “How do I keep going when I know she is gone because of me?”

He felt Su curl herself over him, her hair dropping to block the light from his face, her hands pressing his shoulders back to her chest, felt the bridge of her nose at the back of his neck.

“Make her proud, Jiji.”

“I have no idea how to do that.”

“All she wanted was for you to be happy. In your position, that will take courage and strength… you’ll have to work really hard… but, she'd be proud.”

“How can you know?” he felt himself smile a bit, and he wasn’t sure if it was true but the idea helped dry the tears.

“It’s sort of a… guess, but I have a feeling that it’s exactly what she hoped for.”

“Then I suppose I have work to do.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Thanks for meeting me, Jumin.”

It always confused him when people said things like that to him as if he wouldn’t want to meet them. Of all people, Jihyun should be aware of it, but perhaps it made him feel better to say it, in which case he wasn’t going to scold him for it. The desire to correct him almost surfaced, maybe because it had been two years and _this_ is what prompted him to show his face.

“I’m just glad to see you,” Jumin answered honestly, instead of directing his irritation at the man. “What made you change your mind?”

He pulled out the chair across from him in the small coffee shop near Viv’s father’s condo. It was strange that he was so close to them and he was having this ‘secret’ meeting when Viv could at any moment walk past the window and see them. Jumin looked out the window, watching the snow drift slowly down. Jihyun told his order to the waitress, giving Jumin ample time to follow a snowflake on its decent to the ground, hit the pavement, and disappear. It wasn’t cold enough for the snow to stick.

It would be dangerous for Mr. Park to attempt to venture out that evening if he was inclined to do so, since it was likely that once the sun set the wet ground would freeze. He wondered if Viv was aware.

“Jumin?”

The feeling of a cold hand on his wrist startled him out of his thoughts. “Pardon. I hate to ask you to repeat yourself, however –“

“It’s quite alright,” Jihyun offered him a soft smile. “It seems like you have a lot on your mind.”

“I do.” It wasn’t as if Jumin had a reason to lie to his best friend for the past twenty-five plus years. “There’s a lot going on.”

“I’m not sure if I should be putting my problems on you right now,” he laughed, pausing as the waitress returned with his coffee cup and a refill for the pot on the table already. She refilled Jumin’s cup without his asking, and he didn’t pay it much mind. “Perhaps we should share a snack?”

“I’ve already eaten, but if you’d like to get something –“

“No, that’s fine.”

“Please continue.”

“I really don’t –“

“It’s been two years, Jihyun, I think I deserve at least some explanation,” Jumin asserted quietly, yet sternly, leveling Jihyun with the sort of stare that he was especially careful of aiming at friends.

“Yes, yes, you’re correct, of course,” as always, he laughed, equally quiet. “But first, may I ask how you have been doing?”

“No.”

Jihyun’s mouth opened and nothing came out, fishtailing in shock. The familiar expression almost made Jumin smile, and while it didn’t appear much on his face, the tension of his body lightened perhaps enough for Jihyun to notice.

Again, he laughed, this time embarrassed and self-depreciating. “You’re right, I would decide whether or not to tell you things based off your answer. Even after so much time apart, you still know me.”

“Of course I do.”

“Of course you do,” Jihyun nodded, an echo of an answer, as if the words comforted him and he visibly relaxed himself. “I, ah, saw the news. I… tried to wrack my brain for when the last time was I saw Suji cry like that and… for a moment I thought Yoosung shouldn’t have needed to hold her in that moment. I should have been there for do that for her.” He sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t respond when you told me she needed me before. I’m sorry I’ve abandoned you, Jumin, it seems I have taken you both for granted.”

“Please stop apologizing.” Jumin took a sip of his coffee, preventing himself from saying more, trying to control the urge to just lash out at him.

“Yes, I know how much you hate that,” he smiled, but it was just self-depreciating. “She’s just so strong, I didn’t think she’d need me. Besides, she has you, now.”

“I did not know that a support system should consist of one person,” Jumin countered irritably.

“As usual, you’re quite right. Perhaps if I understood that sooner the situation with Rika wouldn’t have gone the way it did.”

Ah, there it was. “Which was?”

“You are aware that she left to get away from me, correct?”

“I’m not aware of the reasons Rika left at all, nor the reasons you decided to leave yourself.”

Jihyun looked down at his coffee cup as if it had the answers he needed in its dark reflective surface. “Su really didn’t tell you.”

“Sujin respects people’s wishes when they are asked of her. She told me it wasn’t her story to tell, and I respected all three of you to not press her for more information.”

“Yes, that’s exactly how that would go.” His head shook with a bit of a small smile. “God, she’s been so good to me.”

Jumin nodded. “It is not much to ask for you to be good to her in return.”

With a deep inhale, a slow exhale, Jihyun puffed through another bit of silent laughter. “It took a long time for me to realize it wasn’t in my power to fix everything.”

Too many questions were often met with silence, and so Jumin kept quiet, allowed his friend to gather his thoughts.

“I’ve placed so many people in precarious situations. I’ve made so many mistakes. I’m not sure if I will ever be able to repent for them.”

His head shook. Jumin set his cup down to concentrate more on what he was saying.

“Rika… I think I smothered her. She needed to learn to love herself, but I pretended if I loved her enough her mental illness would go away. She believed that, too, and when I wasn’t enough, she began to despise me. I didn’t help her love herself, I wanted her to love me. I think even back then I was afraid she’d no longer need me if she did.”

Jihyun looked out the window, silent for several long moments while Jumin absorbed this information. The next sip of his coffee was cold.

“Perhaps, that’s not love at all, Jumin.”

“No, I don’t think it is.”

“Sujin knew what she needed all along and helped her leave. She knew that Rika needed to get away from me.”

“Excuse me?”

Jumin realized for maybe the thousandth time that the way Jihyun covered his sadness was to laugh, something he had almost forgotten in his irritation until he turned that sad smile to him.

“Su helped Rika leave. Gave her money for a flight wherever she wanted and didn’t ask where she’d booked it, a credit card, a phone, whatever resources Rika would need. She took her to the airport and stayed until her flight left and didn’t speak a word of it to anyone except to tell me that Rika had left and she was safe. She told me not to look for her.”

“I presumed that’s why you’d left.”

“It was, at first. I never found her. I haven’t spoken to her. I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing. I had to learn to live without her…” Self-depreciatingly, he smirked. “That’s when I realized Sujin had done the best thing she could for us. I knew I needed her more than she needed me. She defined who I was as a person, my goals in life, my self-worth. Without her I didn’t even have myself.”

Jihyun refilled both of their coffee cups.

“How are you?” Jumin rose his cup to his lips, glancing up to observe Jihyun as he smiled.

“Better. Happier. Co-dependency is a terrifying sort of relationship but I’m glad I learned my vices early on in life. Or at least, some of them.”

“I’m glad to hear that, but that still doesn’t explain why it took you so long to come back.”

“I didn’t want to take advantage of your care for me. I’d realized I needed to know I could live on my own, and I didn’t want to put you guys in a place where you had to take responsibility for me. I still worry that I will.”

Jumin was the one who reached out to his friend, a hand stopping him from looking away again. Jihyun met his eyes for the first time, fingers loosened from the handle of his coffee cup, twined into his own with an expression of thanks so visceral that Jumin felt it in his stomach, in his chest.

“That’s not possible.”

“Of course it is, I—”

It had been at least fifteen years since he’d said it, and it was right now that Jumin realized his friend needed to hear it. He’d forgotten that Jihyun’s was a tender soul that needed to be told, or he’d doubt it.

“Jihyun, I love you.”

He watched those mint eyes widen, his hand trembling in his own.

“Sujin loves you.”

Jihyun’s eyes filled with tears that didn’t fall, a shuddering breath that spread into a grateful smile. All of Jumin’s irritation fell away, the only thing left was the heartache of missing his best friend, watching him wander when he never needed to be lost to find himself in the first place.

“Try not to forget next time.”

“I’ll never forget again.”

 

***

 

_{moon}_

_From here the world is beautiful_  
_Watching you dance is wonderful_  
_Your smile brings the sunrise_  
_Over the edge of your shadowed face_

 _From here the clouds are white_  
_cotton candy sweet enough to taste_  
_pillowing your head as you lay to sleep_  
_hazy frames for pleasant dreams_

_It’s been so long since we’ve been together  
that even a day apart seems impossible_

_Never too far away_  
_Wherever you are, I will always be_  
_I will always be, I will always be_  
_watching from here_

 _From here the oceans are blue_  
_Bright as the sky on the clearest sunny day_  
_Every drop clear and clean and true_  
_As calm as a Buddha’s heart_

_Even when I turn away  
it won’t be long until you see my face_

_Never too far away_  
_Wherever you are, I will always be_  
_I will always be, I will always be_  
_here_

 _Each one of our problems feels so small_  
_from here_  
_Each one of our wishes are heard_  
_from here_  
_Each one of our souls are so strong_  
_from here_  
_Each one of your smiles shine so bright_  
_from here_

 

 

Completely different and entirely the same as the last time he’d seen her.

She’d dyed her hair but it was just as long, a color so dark it was only in the halo of the artificial light on top of her head that it showed a violet glow. She wore more makeup than she used to, but she was still in her baggy knee-length band sweatshirt and tights, her combat boots replaced with a pair of heeled oxfords. She stood at a keyboard, swaying gently as she sang a tender melody, eyes closed as she smiled through the words despite the melancholy atmosphere, a satisfaction in her face that was so familiar to him.

There was something so… comforting about seeing her like this.

 _From here the world is beautiful_  
_Watching you dance is wonderful_  
_Your smile brings the sunrise_  
_Over the edge of your shadowed face_

Jumin stood beside him at the door to the practice studio, eyes only for Sujin. His arms crossed over his chest and his head held high just like he stood from before Jihyun could remember anything being different. Jihyun witnessed his friend’s stiff disposition relax as she blessed them with her voice, and just like he’d always had as a teenager, covered his smile with a hand. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever looked at anyone the way that Jumin looked at Suji now, he wasn’t sure he had ever loved someone the way his friend loved her. Nothing about the way he watched her had changed, if anything, it was more intense than before.

_It’s been so long since we’ve been together  
that even a day apart seems impossible_

As if he’d realized he’d forgotten he was there, Jumin turned his head to look at him, and Jihyun smiled for his best friend in much the same way he’d always had when he’d caught Jumin getting lost in the girl he was so in love with. Jumin’s half-smile was accompanied by a slight shake of his head, and despite his embarrassment, turned his attention back to her. It was a journey to get where they were, a long one, a road he wasn’t jealous of but a destination he hoped for himself. Everyone did, he imagined, even if they wouldn’t admit it.

Jihyun wondered if he’d ever get there.

 _From here the clouds are white_  
_cotton candy sweet enough to taste_  
_pillowing your fall as you lay to sleep_  
_hazy frames for pleasant dreams_

Zen was the first one to notice him, his bewildered expression making Jihyun feel like he shouldn’t be there. His scarlet eyes flickered back to Sujin, Jihyun felt his face warm. It wasn’t like him to not say something, shout something, hop up from where he was leaning against the wall and run over to… do what? Zen wasn’t the type to hug him, right? But he’d shake his hand and swat his shoulder with a grin, sure. Instead Zen nodded, just once, a small smile spreading his lips.

_Even when I turn away  
it won’t be long until you see my face_

_Never too far away_  
_Wherever you are I will always be_  
_I will always be, I will always be_  
_watching from here_

Saeyoung looked up from his phone, golden eyes surprised for a moment before they glanced the room and landed back on Jihyun. Trepidation moved through him, anticipation for him to jump up and deck him for what he’d done to him and his brother, what he hadn’t done for them. Saeyoung reached to the other side of the couch with his bare foot to poke a young white-haired and tattooed man that Jihyun didn’t recognize.

 _From here the oceans are blue_  
_Bright as the sky on the clearest sunny day_  
_Every drop clear and clean and true_  
_As calm as a Buddha’s heart_

A matching pair of eyes peered over the edge of a sketchbook and a hand swatted, annoyed, at the offensive foot. Saeran was directed to look at Jihyun, paused just like his brother before his features softened into something close to pleasant. Saeyoung rose a finger to his lips, indicating that the other two on the couch should be quiet, and gestured with the tilt of his head towards Suji.

 _Never too far away_  
_Wherever you are I will always be_  
_I will always be, I will always be_  
_here_

Yoosung had been watching Saeyoung and Saeran, perched at the edge of the couch close to Saeran and peering over his shoulder, leaning into him, to look at what he was drawing. Yoosung, the cousin of Rika, who despised him for what he’d done to her, who rightfully blamed him for everything she’d been through, who’d looked up to him and trusted him to take care of her, was the one Jihyun was worried would be angry with him the most. He looked as Saeran did, violet eyes going wide as saucers and his lips parting in a gasp that couldn’t be heard over Su’s singing. Saeran placed a hand on Yoosung’s knee, grabbing his attention again, and said something that Jihyun would never know before Yoosung nodded and flashed him a half-hearted smile, dropping his chin to Saeran’s shoulder.

_Each one of our problems feels so small  
from here_

Jihyun used to love to find the meanings, messages, hidden in the lyrics of the songs Su wrote. He combed through every syllable, looked up the references for every line. And yet, for once there was a story as straightforward as the simple instrumental accompaniment. His heart ached with every word, he knew she meant every letter.

_Each one of our wishes are heard  
from here_

He turned to grab the doorknob.

_Each one of our souls are so strong  
from here_

Jumin’s hand over the door frame stopped him. He had no idea everyone would be here. He couldn’t face them yet, it was already too much to face her, he didn’t deserve his sister’s comfort. Not after he’d abandoned her. He didn’t deserve to be the one who received this song. It was too good, too pure for him. She didn’t need him, his heart kept saying, he couldn’t help her.

_Each one of your smiles shine so bright  
from here_

His eyes closed as the instrumental ended, she’d lifted her hands from the keys and he didn’t want to see her face when he found him there, being barred from leaving by Jumin’s arm. Bile scalded his throat, threatening to bend him over and embarrass him further. He didn’t want to be there anymore, he was afraid.

“Jihyun?”

Slowly, Jihyun turned back around to face her. It felt like his heart had stopped, unable to breathe. He met her eyes. An expanse of warm, deep brown blinked at him, the slight twist of her brows that creased her forehead. A shudder traveled down his spine as her lips parted and she took in a deep breath, as if she was trying to calm herself, like the wind had been knocked out of her chest.

“Jiji…”

He forced himself to let go of the doorknob and turn to her completely.

“Hey,” he said, soft, hoarse.

Suddenly a body much smaller than his own slammed into him with a force that shouldn’t have knocked him back into the door but did, and he didn’t realize that he’d moved until his ass was on the floor and he’d buried his face in her hair. His chest gasped painfully for air when he’d begun to sob like he had only one other time in his life, with this one person wrapped around him long enough that the time slipped away. She cried equally as loud and horribly into his neck and shoulder as he was hers.

“I’m so sorry,” he croaked, throat raw, trying to swallow the rest of his tears. “Su, I’m so, so sorry.”

“No, no, no,” she shook her head and smeared her makeup on his coat and he couldn’t care at all. “Don’t say that! You were hurting, too.”

“I don’t deserve –”

“Don’t!”

When she pulled back he wiped the snot from her nose with the edge of his sleeve and spread his lips in a watery, apologetic smile.

“We missed you.”

“I missed you guys, too.”

Her head ducked back down and buried in his chest. Jihyun breathed a sigh of relief and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pressed a kiss to her forehead like he used to when they were kids.

That’s when a blonde head came into his view, as Yoosung had kneeled next to them. He sat back on his heels for a moment before he bowed his head, took a deep breath, and lifted it. The anxiety of the situation came back full force, but before Jihyun had a chance to register what was going on, Yoosung had smiled.

“Welcome home, Jihyun.”

Thin arms slid around his neck and the scent of citrus invaded his nose as golden hair obscured his vision, the unfamiliar shape of a face pressed against his neck. He removed one arm from Su to cradle Yoosung to him. For some reason Jihyun thought he was out of tears, but of course, touched beyond what he thought he was capable of feeling, they slipped down his face again.

“Thank you, Yoosung. It’s good to be home.”

 

 

***

 

 

“Excuse the mess, everything is in disarray while we work on renovations.”

“Oh, what for?”

“For Viv to formally move in. I currently don’t have adequate room to accommodate her needs.”

“I understand, that does make sense. I’m surprised you’re getting married so quickly.”

“To tell you the truth, Jihyun, I’m impatient. Considering how long this took, I’m not looking to round numbers.”

“For someone who likes to play by the rules, it’s –”

“That ship sailed a long time ago.”

Viv leaned against the wall in the kitchen, holding two glasses of wine, reluctant to interrupt their conversation. Jihyun laughed, long and heartily, until he was out of breath, and she could hear Jumin's silence was indignant all the way from the kitchen.

“Is this permanent?” she heard Jumin ask, and she stopped in her tracks even as she’d started to go back, knowing the topic would be instantly changed if she appeared now.

“I… yes, it’s permanent. I, at least, shouldn’t repeat my mistakes.”

She turned back around, placed the glasses in the fridge to chill, now very sure she wasn’t going to disturb them, then started fiddling with the current whiskey that had been decanted. It was a Canadian blend, something light and sweet. Did they have any oranges?

“Then it should not be hazardous to ask you to be my best man?”

“I would be honored, Jumin.”

Jumin chuckled. “I was worried we would not have you here for our wedding. It was not something I wanted to proceed with in your absence.”

“You wouldn’t have postponed on account of me, I’d hope.”

“No, I wouldn’t. It is only… it would have made that day… bittersweet.”

“I would've come back for your wedding. I’ve been invested in your relationship since you told me you had a crush on her when we were fifteen, Jumin, of course I would be there.”

Viv smiled, glad that he would have come home regardless. It made her feel guilty that it was her father’s illness and her being unable to keep herself together in the face of it that disturbed the time he needed to take for himself. She shook the bottle of bitters into her whiskey glass and looked at it for a moment, trying to remember whether it was an old fashioned or a manhattan that had bitters, or both, and which one had orange and which one had cherries. It was either or, right? Not one had one and the other had the other.

“I wonder what Suji is doing in there,” she heard Jihyun laugh. “It’s taking her a while to pour two glasses of wine.”

“I presume she’s trying to give us the space to speak privately. Shall I retrieve her?”

“No, no, not yet,” he laughed again, this time sounding more embarrassed. “I guess I am curious… how all this came about?”

“Believe it or not, our fathers set us up.”

A startled laugh ripped through Jihyun, almost choking him. “Seriously? After you’d asked to marry her, too. Wow, Han is fickle.”

“I don’t think he even remembers.”

Jumin had asked his father if he could marry her? When was that? Viv took a sip of the whiskey from the decanter, reluctant to look up a cocktail recipe. She’d figure it out.

“Holding out for so long ended up working out for you in the end. I can see why you’d want to tie the knot so quickly.”

“Oh no, Father has a girlfriend whom he’s attempted to appease by nullifying our betrothal and having me marry someone she’s recommended. What she doesn’t know is that he’s already begun cheating on her.”

“He, what?”

Viv grinned, struggling with an over-sized ice cube mold. She hadn’t heard this news yet.

“We introduced the woman who will be catering the desserts for our wedding to my father, at his engagement dinner no less, and he was completely smitten with her almost immediately. She’s quite a beautiful woman. Until that point, he was disapproving of my refusal to call off our engagement. She praised his choice of a wife for me and his raising of me, and suddenly he was attempting to show off by talking about making sure we have everything we want for our wedding and being much kinder to Su than he has been in some time. He called me for her phone number and from what I understand, he took her to dinner last night.”

“Amazing. Just… incredible in the worst way.”

“It was Ray’s idea. Nonetheless, I am preparing a lawsuit against Glam Choi, though I do plan to wait until after he separates from her.”

“Isn’t it a moot point then?”

“No, I want to make publicly known she fabricated things about Su to destroy her reputation so I would be forced to break our engagement. Su’s and Carpe Diem’s careers are at stake due to her lies. I might not be able to get her on stalking and such, but I can get her on defamation, which is more than enough for me.”

“I can’t understand why someone would want to do something like that to someone as sweet as Suji.”

“Money.”

Jihyun sighed. “For a more pleasant topic, how has your relationship been going?”

“Fine.”

“Just fine?”

“ _Jihyun._ ”

Viv had to suppress laughing to give away she’d been listening the entire time and started to rummage through the cabinets. She had the orange, the huge ice cubes still stuck in the tray that she set aside to melt slightly instead of trying to force them out. Didn’t he have regular sugar? She guessed she could use the cubes for coffee and tea, but they were harder to dissolve in cold liquids. It had to be around here somewhere.

“Oh! Well, that’s not what I was talking about! I meant how are you getting along? That sort of thing.”

“I am… content.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Jihyun was smiling, she just could hear it in his voice.

“I don’t want to give an hour-long monologue about the specifics of how she’s impacted my life, Jihyun.”

“Try me.”

“I…” Jumin paused, his voice lowering as if he was embarrassed. “I’ve always known that she’s perfect for me but… she’s completed my life in ways I never knew I found lacking. We are… more compatible than one might first think. Some might find her language vulgar or her brusque nature a bit off-putting, but I find it refreshing that she doesn’t hide those things from me. I don’t know if I expected that part of her to change, or for her to be… softer in her regard of me, but she’s just the same as she’s always been, she treats me the same as she always has. Well, except…”

Jihyun laughed as if he knew exactly what he was alluding to.

“The other day we…” Jumin began, voice particularly gentle. “We had breakfast together. Ah, I should say, I woke up to Suji making breakfast. She’d put on one of my undershirts and my cat slippers… her hair was haphazardly piled on her head, wet from the shower… she’d turned the radio on and… I don’t know how long I watched her, just singing along while she made pancakes. Too long. We’ve seen her like that a thousand times but there was something about that moment and the way my chest felt so full it hurt… That’s when I knew I… God, Jihyun, I knew I loved her but not like this. I never fathomed love could be like this.”

Silence fell between them. Viv imagined they were sharing a smile, that Jihyun was watching his friend with eyes that were pleased, relieved.  

“We do argue at times, but not more than we did before. It seems that we have the same old arguments we always have: someone is overextending themselves in one way or another, ignoring something we want or need in order to please someone who doesn’t matter, taking responsibility for things that is out of our control…”

Another laugh from their mint-haired friend, one that was soft and knowing.

“She sees who I am and not who she wants me to be. She doesn’t have expectations of me other than the ones I’ve set for myself. I knew it was something I wanted, but I wasn’t prepared for just how comfortable it feels… to be able to trust her.”

“I can tell. You’re a bit… warmer than when I saw you last.”

That made her heart swell, to have that admission to his best friend in confidence, something that she would never be able to coax from him if she tried. Viv used a spoon to smoosh one piece of the orange into a pulp, set aside a second slice for another drink and ate the rest, picking the rine carefully from each piece one at a time with her nails.

Jihyun hummed, as if he was in thought. “So… is that really a tattoo?”

“This? Ah, yes. Suji has a matching tattoo on her wrist.”

“I never pegged you as the type to get a tattoo. I know Su has a bunch but how did she convince you of that?”

“Why am I the only one who didn’t know she had them until…”

Jihyun chuckled as if he was teasing. Jumin cleared his throat.

“As terrible as it sounds, I quite liked the idea of branding her. Of course, it would be worse to want that from her and not reciprocate. Ray designed this set for us. I don’t think I would ever get more, but for what it is, I find it aptly represents our relationship.”

“So, she has a feather, too?”

“No, she has a wing on her wrist.”

“A wing… does it have anything to do with the fact that you call her ‘angel’ nowadays?”

“It does.”

The ice cubes still wouldn’t come out, probably the fault of the silicone mold instead of a normal hard plastic one. Fed up, she slammed it on the counter to break it, figuring she didn’t need to stall any longer since he wasn’t pouring his heart out anymore. Jumin sighed, and she heard the shuffle of fabric as he likely stood up.

“What the hell is she doing?”

She heard Jihyun laugh as if he’d never heard Jumin curse in his life, despite the fact that he did more when they were younger, and still did on occasion. A few moments later she felt hands settle on her hips as she swept shards of ice from the counter into the glass.

“It defeats the purpose of the blocks of ice being oversized if you have to break it to get it out, right?” she fussed, tossing the ice tray in the sink.

“You could have asked for help instead of trying to shatter my marble counter top,” she heard him scold over her head. “You normally take your whiskey neat.”

“Yeah but when I realized this whiskey is blended, I thought I would use it for a cocktail,” she tapped the decanter. “I need some sugar. I think it’s on a shelf I can’t reach.”

“It’s here,” he reached almost directly above her and placed one hand on her forehead to make sure the cabinet door didn’t hit her head before he grabbed the container of sugar from the top shelf. Finally with the last ingredient and her ice in the glass, while Jumin’s hands settled along her ribs and his cheek on the top of her head, she busied herself with mixing in the whiskey and tasted it to see if she’d put in too much bitters like she thought she had. One more scoop of sugar and topping with a sliver of orange peel, Viv wiggled free to grab the two chilling glasses of wine from the fridge, handing them to Jumin.

When they turned to go back to the living room, Jihyun was standing in the doorway, watching them with a smile on his lips. Jumin handed him the wine glass and Jihyun waited until she was beside him to drop a hand on top of her head as they walked into the living room. Jihyun sat in the armchair that he used to always sit in, legs crossed and leaning into the armrest as if he hadn’t missed a day or their typical nights of drinking at home, just talking. Jumin stretched an arm across the top of his couch, seemingly completely comfortable when she snuggled up to his side with her whiskey glass cradled in both hands.

“This isn’t the best wine to have chilled,” Jumin griped half-heartedly.

“You know what, you should’ve gotten it yourself, then.”

“So cruel,” he clicked his tongue at her. “I was spending time with our guest.”

“Jiji isn’t a guest, he’s family, geez. If he wants a different wine he can fucking get it, I’m enjoying my overly sweet manhattan.”

“I’m quite sure you’ve made an old fashioned, my love. I don’t have vermouth.”

“You’re just being a jerk for the sake of it.”

“I am,” he admitted readily enough. Viv sighed and received a comforting tug on an earring for her trouble. “I would love to know what our brother has been doing with his time away.”

“Me, too! Will you tell us about your trip, Jiji?”

He’d been grinning ear to ear, mint eyes flickering between them. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Start from the beginning!” Viv squeaked.

“I think the easiest way is to… show you pictures,” he told them, standing and crossing the living room.

They separated to let him sit between them and hovered over his shoulder as he brought up the photo album on his phone. The glass of wine he was holding was set on the coffee table in favor of wrapping an arm over Viv’s shoulders, and she tucked herself up to him. He leaned back into Jumin’s arm as if a day hadn’t gone by from the last time he’d sat on this same couch.

“I spent my first few months in Alaska. I never knew a place could be cold, the people so warm, and the land so beautiful at the same time…”

 

 

 

 


	14. Cement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When things seem to start moving forward, they get stopped right in their tracks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {Cement} is inspired by a variety of songs, with a little nod towards Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

It was bright out, the sky clearer than it had been for a while. Sujin laid back in the grass and tucked her hands behind her head to watch large swathes of fluffy white float slowly across the sky. The cool breeze made her sleepy, her busy schedule keeping her up late at night, but the glare of white sun rays prevented her eyes from comfortably closing. She considered putting on sunglasses, but that would make laying down harder, right?

“I hope you weren’t waiting for very long,” Rika said as she sat next to her, but the sun was at the point in the sky where she didn’t really shield her from anything. “Here you go, I looked over the lyrics like you asked.”

“Thanks,” Su opened one eye to take the folded piece of paper Rika was holding in front of her face and tucked it into a pocket in her uniform’s jacket. “Something seems off about you, today.”

Rika laughed. “I just sat down.”

“I’ve known you for how long? Out with it, already.”

“I was just wondering… you never talk about him.”

“Who?”

“Jumin.”

Sujin shrugged, then untucked her hands to push herself up off the ground. “What about him?”

“It’s been three months but you don’t talk about him.”

“I got that part, but why does it concern you?”

Rika frowned at her friend, then looked at her lap. “I don’t know, I guess, I really miss Jihyun even though he’s just a half hour away. Not seeing him everyday is hard. I can’t imagine how hard it would be if he was even farther.”

“I mean, we never dated, so—”

“But you should have.”

“Too late now.” Su quipped nonchalantly, not wanting to be sucked into a cycle of self-pity. Her attention turned more directly to Rika, who had gathered her knees to her chest and was staring into the middle distance. Su was tempted to wave a hand in front of her face. “Do you miss him?”

“Of course I do! He’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I guess when I thought about how much I missed him, that you must really be hurting because you’re so much closer to him.”

“I’m alright, don’t worry about me.”

Rika rolled her eyes. “Is it weird that I’m worried about you? Like, isn’t that something we’re supposed to do for each other? I know you’re like a big sister to everyone and the only person you ever really talked to was Jumin, but he isn’t here right now, so couldn’t you let me in just a little?”

“How am I supposed to tell you anything when you’re not being completely honest with me?”

“Do I always have to?”

“Yes, Rika, you do,” Sujin recognized her harsher tone and tried to reign it in with a sigh. “Look, when you ask me about me, there’s usually something going on with you that’s a lot scarier than what first world problems I’m experiencing. I don’t want you to compare us and make yourself feel worse.”

“Is that really why you don’t tell me anything?”

“Yes, it is.”

Sometimes it was hard to weather Rika’s distraught expressions without trying to do something about. Sujin attributed it to her being so pretty that no one wanted her to twist her face up like that, a completely selfish reaction, to be honest. She wouldn’t apologize, because it was the truth, so she waited until Rika lifted her face from her knees and turned to look at her face.

“Honestly, I’m not even sure what’s going on with me. I feel like I’m stuck and no matter how hard I try to walk in any direction, I just stay exactly where I was. The other day when we went shopping, every time I looked at a new dress you’d ask me ‘how do you like it’ and I’d ask myself ‘how would Jihyun like it’, except it’s like that for everything. From what I eat to when I sleep, my whole life revolved around him and now that he isn’t around so much it feels like everything is falling apart.”

Sujin stretched her legs out in front of her and pressed her palms on the ground to support her weight. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, but the worst part is, now the band is gone because of me.”

“The band would’ve broken up when they left anyway. There was no way we could keep it going when neither of them can make it to band practice.”

“But there’s nothing keeping him here anymore.”

“Sure there is, he has you.”

“How much of himself did he have to sacrifice to stay with me? I really hurt him. What did he lose when he forgave me?”

“I’m not the person you should asking.”

“You don’t say,” she answered irritably.

“I mean, that thing you did to Jumin—"

“—I said I was sorry—”

“—have you thought about why you did it?”

Rika nodded, shoulders slumping. “Sometimes my thoughts are so dark that I don’t know how they got there. I didn’t really mean it, I wish I could take it back.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Then some days it seems like the lights come on and I realize I’ve done or said something horrible.”

“Like today?”

Rika took a deep breath and looked up at the sky, then nodded. Sujin knew that something had been wrong the entire time, but she didn’t know what or how, just that Rika was often afraid unreasonable things would happen that she had no evidence to believe. Paranoid, she’d call it, of some sort of danger that didn’t make sense.

“A while ago,” Rika started again slowly, “Jumin told me how he felt about you and wanted my opinion on your situation. That he knew he would have a marriage arranged for him and he was afraid to ask you out because if things went well, he wouldn’t be able to take breaking your heart. I took everything he told me and I twisted his words and turned it against him. I bet he’ll never trust a girl again because the one time he did, she did the same thing every other girl does to him.”

“You should know him well enough to know Jumin isn’t that impractical. You’d earned his trust and you betrayed it so he stopped having a reason to trust you. That doesn’t mean he’s never going to trust any chick ever, it just means he’s not going to trust you.”

Rika sighed heavily.

“What?”

They sat silently for a few minutes. Sujin adjusted herself to lay back down in the grass, just allowing the scent of the lawn invade her nose, until Rika figured out her thoughts enough to speak again.

“I’ve always been jealous. The way Jumin treats you… is so different from how Jihyun treats me.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t dating either of them, of course he treats me different. Both of them do.”

Rika’s head shook, as if she was having a hard time explaining what she meant. “Jumin would sometimes give you this look when he was annoyed and simply walk away as if he didn’t care if it would hurt you. He would correct you without hesitation and would argue with your opinions and if he didn’t like a song he’d tell you he didn’t and would tell you fix it. At first I thought he was really mean to you for someone who was supposed to have a crush on you, but after a while I realized that’s what his personality was like… he wasn’t treating you differently from anyone else.”

“I don’t see how that has anything to do with Jiji, though.”

“Like, they don’t selectively tell you things so your feelings won’t get hurt, they don’t solve problems for you behind your back, they argue with you and tell you their real opinions no matter how much you’d disagree… Jihyun must think I’m fragile, like I’m glass and if anything bad happens at all I will shatter.”

Su was about to point out again that she was never in a relationship with either of them, but that would be a moot point now. The comparison had already been made. “No one thinks of you like that but you, Rika.”

“I know I’m not fragile.”

“But do you?” Su poked her in the arm. “Why didn’t you talk to Jihyun about how he treats you, then?”

“What you mean?”

“You were having a problem with Jihyun and tried to convince Jumin to date you in order to solve your problem. I don’t see how that makes sense at all. You should have just talked to Jihyun about whatever the fuck was bothering you.”

“I couldn’t –”

“—no, Rika, you _wouldn’t_. You’re perfectly able, but you didn’t because you didn’t _want to_. There’s a difference.”

“I’m not going to fight with him like you do.”

“But isn’t that what you’re perceiving as him believing you’re fragile? What’s the point of trying to hash out a conflict when you’re going to cry and he’s going to pat your head until you stop and both of you will never speak of it again?”

“You don’t know anything about having a boyfriend, you can’t just… yell at each other all the time like you can at them.”

“I don’t yell at people, I just say what’s on my mind regardless of whether they want to hear it. Sometimes they don’t and it makes them upset, but I’m not going to hide my feelings just because they’d be angry.”

“That’s what I mean, you can’t just be that way when you’re in a romantic relationship.”

“Why not?”

“That’s how people end up breaking up.”

Su was getting frustrated. “Holy shit.”

“What? It’s true! You can’t just go around hurting people’s feelings all the time!”

“Like coming on to his best friend instead of just talking to him about the problem?”

Rika leaned forward and dropped her face in her hands.

“I don’t know what kind of relationship that is, Rika, but I sure as hell never want to have one. I guess I’ll just be forever alone,” Su scoffed.

“No! _No!_ I have told him! It’s just not good enough! It doesn’t work no matter what!”

Rika had suddenly started yelling at her.

“He does whatever I say! He doesn’t challenge me, he doesn’t ask why, he just lets me tell him what to do until I’m blue in the face and crying in a heap on the floor about some girl that was nice to him when we bought ice cream last week. I know I’m being unreasonable! I know it was just a little smile or a tiny laugh and he was just being polite just like he was raised and I know he’s doing exactly what I’d want him to do because if he acted haughty or rude I would berate him for that, too. I know that I’m ridiculous but I can’t stop being that way and I know the longer he just does what I ask the longer I’ll abuse him but it doesn’t matter!”

“What doesn’t matter?”

“How hard I try to change. No matter how much I try to fix myself, the worse it gets.”

“Who said you were broken in the first place?”

“I did! I _am_ broken! Completely smashed to fucking bits! Nothing in my head works right! And I _didn’t_ choose to be like this, I _can’t_ just be the kind of person I want to be! I just want to be normal and happy and –what are you smiling about?”

“You said ‘fuck’.”

“Oh my god! I’m being serious!”

“I know.”

Rika sighed and frowned, hiding her face in her hands again. “I don’t know why I tried to talk to you.”

“Me either.”

“You’re supposed to have some astute advice and tell me how to solve this problem, Suji, that’s why! Do you hate me so much that now you won’t help me? I’m sorry, Suji, I really am, but I don’t know what to do anymore and I need you to fix this!”

Sujin sat up and draped an arm over Rika’s shoulder before quietly saying, “I can’t.”

“You’re being really mean right now.”

“No, I’m telling you the truth. Seriously. I know absolutely nothing at all about what’s going on with you or why you feel like this. It sounds like this isn’t a problem that we can solve on our own.”

“You mean, like a doctor?”

“Yeah, like a doctor. A therapist, a psychiatrist, someone who knows something.”

“There’s no way I can go, Yoosung’s parents will never pay for that,” Rika’s head shook. “My life will be destroyed, I’ll never get a job—”

“Hey, hey! My dad will help us. He’s gone before, you know? He had to, so the rehab would stick after mom left. I’m sure he knows exactly what to do.”

“He did?” Cautiously, Rika’s eyes came back up to meet hers, trembling with fear. “You’ve never told me about that.”

“I was only eight, I didn’t really know what was happening since no one explained it to me. Dad went to a live-in rehab institution, and my mom had moved to America, so, I lived with Jiji for a while,” Su shrugged.

“No wonder you two are so close. You’ve gone through a lot together…”

The way Rika’s face and eyes dropped slightly made Sujin feel bad about that fact, though she refused to acknowledge it. She didn’t want to have another argument over the boys. Sujin paused and took a breath, then smiled, a quiet, sad smile.

“Mr. Kim never did talk to us much, and he was kind of scary to a little kid, but one day I got the nerve to ask him why my dad hadn’t come home yet. I’ll never forget what he said to me that day:

_“Your head and your heart can be injured when bad things happen just like when you fall and break your arm, you simply can’t see it. You have to go to a doctor and get patched up or it will fester and rot.”_

“Do you really believe that’s true?”

“He’s never been nice or anything, but he’s never lied either.”

Rika looked down at her hands, which were curled so tightly together that her knuckles were white.

“Hey,” Su tried to look at her face. “You’re not broken. You’re just wounded, but you can heal. You _will_ heal. Let’s just take care of it before rot sets in, ok?”

“Do you think I could ever earn his forgiveness?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

When Rika looked up her eyeliner was smudged but she smiled just a little, and Suji smiled back, carefully wiping her darkened under eyes with her thumbs. “I’ll work hard to make everything up to you, and Jihyun… and Jumin. I promise.”

Rika leaned in and wrapped her arms around Su’s waist with a sigh that sounded sort of like relief. Suji lightly laid her arms around Rika’s shoulders, feeling the tension leave her body and her face turn into Su’s neck before a shuddering breath wracked her frame.

“I’m proud of you, Rika.”

That’s when Rika began to cry, and Suji simply rubbed her back and pet her hair while Rika soaked her blazer. It was an improvement that she hadn’t started crying earlier. She sobbed for a short while and that was just fine with Suji, at least those emotions were getting out instead of being pushed down and ignored. Even when her tears subsided, Rika didn’t leave her arms. Instead they sprawled out in the grass to enjoy the crisp scents of early autumn.

“Now will you tell me?”

Su had almost expected her to forget, and conceded since Rika did tell her what was going on.

“I do miss him. I miss him so much sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe, and some days I curl up in bed and cry like a bitch when I can’t talk to him ‘cause he’s studying for some exam, and even though I know hearing him talk about making new friends shouldn’t bother me, I can’t help but get so angry I could break something.”

“Thanks for telling me. It’s sort of nice to know that you have issues, too,” Rika teased, and looked a lot better than she did before. “You’re just so quiet about it.”

Sujin laughed and touched the lobe of one ear to fiddle with a sapphire earring, the pair he’d given her for her birthday before leaving for college. “Yeah, because I know that he’s happy, and I don’t want to fuck that up by complaining because I’m selfish.”

“That’s it?”

“Yup, that’s it.”

“You’ve always been that way, haven’t you?”

“What way?”

“Wanting us to be happy.”

“Well, yeah. Being happy is hard.”

Rika sighed and Suji lifted a curl into her line of sight to twirl it around her fingers. The color of her hair and the bright rays of sunlight almost melded together, made it hard to see the strands Sujin knew she was holding in her hand.

“Hey, Suji. I think… when I get better, I’d like to help people, too.”

“I think you’d be good at that.”

“Honest?”

“Honest.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_{Cement}_

_(I just need to tell you honestly)_

_I’ve been waitin’ by my phone for hours  
Missin’ the sound of your voice_

_You said when hell froze over:_  
_I guess that was yesterday_  
_When your hollow voice said my name_  
_and the loneliness didn’t go away_

 _Hey, we were good together_  
_Today we’re better apart_  
_Hey, we were good together_  
_Today I’m greater, greater, greater—_

_Honestly_

_I’m sick of being stuck in one place  
Cemented to the ground while you walk away_

_It’s depressing_  
_But I don’t need to be depressed_  
_It’s painful_  
_But wounds heal and scars regress_  
_I’m apologizing_  
_But I’m not sorry that my eyes look_  
_brighter, lighter, repossessed_

_Next time you see me,  
keep going your own way_

_(because) Honestly?_

_Today I’m better, faster, stronger—_

_Hey, we were good together_  
_Today we’re better apart_  
_Hey, we were good together_  
_Today I’m greater, greater, greater—_

_Honest._

Yoosung adjusted the mic and looked back at the drum kit where Jihyun was adjusting the height of the cymbals, then down to the piece of paper with the lyrics written in Viv’s neat penmanship. He’d read it so many times that he was sure he’d memorized the words but he couldn’t be absolutely sure. To his left, Zen was experimenting with the melody on the keyboard and Seven was talking to his twin. On his right, Jumin was riffing on his bass guitar while Viv danced and sang a completely different song than the one they were working on.

He couldn’t keep saying he couldn’t do this. He’s the one who told Viv that he actually wanted to sing, months of singing lessons went into this. Everyone else believed he could do this except him.

A sudden hand on his shoulder startled him, meeting golden eyes when he turned to look at the person touching him.

“Ray?”

“Hey, you’re going to be fine,” he smiled.

“You took out your contacts.”

“You’re trying to change the subject.”

He was right. “Yeah, well –”

“She wrote that song for you, you know. Told me all about it while I was finishing her tattoo last week.”

“She’s got a new tat? What is it?”

“That’s beside the point. I’m trying to tell you that you don’t need to worry, that song is written specifically to bring out the best parts of your voice.” A hand brushed white bangs from his face, red roots indicating they’d gotten a bit too long. “You know, written to bank on your strengths. She wants you to succeed, you know, everyone does.”

Yoosung stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked down at pair of teal converse they’d decorated together with blue roses and gold koi fish. “Yeah, I know, that’s not really the problem.”

“The fuck you nervous for, then? It’s just us here.”

He couldn’t help but snicker at the blunt delivery, looking away to avoid blushing when Ray smirked. “I guess when you’ve been told for years that you can’t do something, it’s hard to get that voice out of your head.”

Ray crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against a nearby pillar. “I get it. But didn’t you prove her wrong when you became a professional drummer?”

“I can’t wrap my head around why she would do that.”

“You don’t have to.” That nonchalant phrase caught his attention and Yoosung looked back at Ray’s face, who was frowning at him. “You don’t. It doesn’t matter why she did it. Sometimes understanding why something happened helps, but most of the time it hurts just as bad as it always did. You just have to have enough confidence in yourself to not allow someone else’s hang ups stop you from doin’ you.”

“Isn’t that… selfish?”

Ray scoffed. “More like self-preservation. I would tell you that you need to be more cynical, but I think I’m enough of that for the both of us. Besides, that natural empathy is one of your best qualities.”

That made Yoosung smile and shuffle from foot to foot. He heard footsteps behind him and Ray’s posture adjusted.

“Fuck off, bitch!” he snapped in a tone Yoosung realized was playful despite of how hard it sounded, and Viv’s high-pitched giggling burst from the few feet away she’d made it before Ray huffed and settled back against the pillar again.

“You two are so mean to each other,” Yoosung needled, glad to not be talking about himself anymore.

“You didn’t see what she did,” Ray chuckled and shook his head. “Nah, it’s just our thing.”

Yoosung took another look around. With Viv having stepped out, Jumin had moved over to the drumkit to talk to Jihyun and with Saeran speaking with him, Seven had begun pestering Zen by pressing random keys while he was playing.

“I’m curious about Viv’s new tattoo,” he looked back at Ray.

“Yeah, ok, I have a picture of it. But don’t tell her I showed you.” He fished his phone of the back pocket of his tight leather pants, that Yoosung hoped he wasn’t being too obvious looking away from before he started staring.

The phone was handed to him, revealing an old looking book with a large decorative letter and a page of text he couldn’t read, sort of looking like English or French but not really. The alternate page was a picture of a sickly person in bed as angels hovered over him and beneath the bed was several things that looked like a cross between rotting dog corpses and demons. Ribbons of more text he couldn’t read overlapped the picture in places. The book itself was laying in a bed of blue roses, thorny vines holding the book in place.

“I mean, it looks like something she’d get, but what is it?” Yoosung glanced up at Ray, who laughed.

“It’s _the_ Ars Moriendi.”

“You mean, it’s a real thing? I just thought it was some fancy name.”

“It’s a real thing. The name is latin that roughly translates to ‘the art of dying well’. See, every culture has its own version of an ars moriendi, there’s even a whole field of study within literature devoted to them, but the genre is named for this specific iteration. It’s some religious book written during The Plague that is supposed to tell you how to die in a way that will prevent you from going to hell."

“You mean, like the Bible?”

“No, it’s not about how to live a good life to get into heaven, it’s specifically about how to behave on your deathbed so you don’t fuck everything up.”

“Sounds morbid.”

“It’s not supposed to be,” he shrugged. “Think about it this way. Imagine you know you’re dying, but no one knows what’s wrong with you, it’s painful, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Your parents and everyone in this room has to watch you suffer until you finally kick the bucket. I know I’d be pretty fucking angry, at the very least, and a total asshole at worse.”

“Yeah, it would be hard to hold it together in that sort of situation, huh?”

“Then some priest shows up and gives your family this book. Inside are prayers for your family to say for you to help ease your pain, a couple of reminders to not act like a complete dick to the people who are caring for you, and somewhere in there is the reassurance that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and this isn’t your fault.”

“You think it has anything to do with why the production company is named after this book?”

“Absolutely. Viv says her father thinks music should bring you comfort. Some story about he’d started singing because his mother sang to him as a kid when his dad killed himself and he’d started writing songs as an outlet, or something like that. Appropriate, isn’t it?”

Yoosung didn’t have time to answer since Viv came back into the room. Ray only had seconds to take his phone back before she appeared next to them.

“Gonna stay?” she asked Ray, who nodded. She glanced around the room, everyone shuffling back to their places. “Alright, pup, don’t worry about the way you sound, I just want you to get comfortable with singing in front of us. Sound good? Zen, will you play the melodic line so he has something to tune to?”

“Sure, babe,” he heard Zen from behind him, and took a deep breath. “Dude, chill, you’re fine.”

She waited for a moment while Ray wandered over to the couch and stretched out with his arms tucked under his head, then she turned and grabbed a guitar, plugged in an extra mic, and pinched Yoosung’s cheek as she passed. “Let’s do it together the first few times. Good?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

 

 

***

 

 

Jaehee looked up from the catalog she was looking at to see Jihyun tug down his scarf and unbutton his coat when he entered the suit shop.

“Thanks for coming, you’re helping me out a lot,” she stood up to meet him, and stuck out a hand for him to shake. Jihyun, though, hugged one arm around her shoulders. She should have expected that. “Zen is with Vivere at the designer getting her dresses sorted out, you’re taking care of photography, the band is taking care of music, Seven is going to DJ the reception, I’ve already paid for catering, the venue is booked – and they take care of decorations in house, Viv and Mr. Han just have to visit and decide which decoration package they want, and –”

“Whoa, Jaehee, one thing at a time,” he laughed, “We’re just here to pick out Jumin’s suit, right?”

“Well, yes. We’re going to pick out three, actually, and at least five options for the guys, plus you’ll have an alternate outfit. You’re going to take everything to him and the two of you are going to work out the final outfits.”

“And I presume it needs to be within the week so that everyone can get everything tailored properly.”

“You are correct.”

“Any particular requests from the bride-to-be?”

“She just said she’d like something more unique than a tux.”

“Oh, low blow,” his head shook. “We have our work cut out for us.”

“That’s why I asked for your help,” Jaehee smiled.

“So, let me ask you about the venue, there’s a place to bring in a grand piano, right?”

“Should there be?”

“Oh, absolutely. And we can already check off what Zen is wearing.”

“What?”

“A white tux. It’s very important.”

“But Viv –” Jaehee sighed, the look on Jihyun’s face telling her that Zen would not be compromised with. When he decided something, he could be as stubborn as Mr. Han. “Did they just decide this? Who do I need to talk to so I can set things in motion? We might have to change the venue.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure if Jumin’s asking for it the venue will bend over backwards to give him exactly what he wants.”

“I’m guessing I should talk to Zen about this.”

“Yes… yes, the guys have made all sorts of new plans, and it’s supposed to be a complete surprise for Viv.”

Jaehee’s head shook, opening the large binder that was sitting on her lap and starting to flip though the pages. “She hates surprises.”

“I know, but she’ll be fine.” Jihyun plopped his hand over the book and took it from her lap before she could continue. “We’re going to have a good day of picking out incredibly expensive clothes for some very handsome men. Do you have the whole day off?” his brows rose.

“I do, is there something else?”

“I was hoping you’d help me find a good wedding gift. And, ah, have lunch with me. It’s been a while, you know?”

“It’d be my pleasure, Mr. Kim.”

“Please, Jihyun has always been just fine.”

 

 

***

 

 

“It’s good to have you back, homes.”

Jumin watched Jihyun take Zen’s offered hand and use the leverage of the handshake to pull Jihyun into a hug. Jihyun laughed and hugged Zen back tighter and longer than Zen had probably intended but it seemed both of them were happy nonetheless. Zen turned his attention to Jumin when they released each other, the same hand and a briefer, but no less friendly, hug waiting for him.

“’Sup, bro. We still meeting the twins?”

Jihyun glanced at him in an expression that only could be interpreted as ‘when did that happen?’, but Jumin didn’t know the answer to that himself.

“They’re going to meet us after we have lunch with Father and Mr. Park,” Jumin informed them, stuffing his hands in his pockets against the cold, leading them down the street towards the restaurant his father had picked for lunch. “How did dress shopping with Viv go the other day?”

“I’m surprised she didn’t say anything,” Jihyun chuckled.

“She wouldn’t even let me ask about it.”

Zen shrugged, pulling his motorcycle gloves tight. “As well as expected when you’re doing something custom and rush ordered. She liked the designer I picked, thankfully. A lot of panicking, trying to contact her mom on the other side of the globe, et cetera, et cetera. Everything is in motion, though, so there’s that.”

“I guess that’s all I can hope for.”

“Something like that. Jaehee mentioned you were in charge of photography, Ji. I mean, that’s cool and everything, but you realize you’re _in_ the wedding, don’t you? For an event this big I’d say you’d want at least two photographers and a videographer. I know some people if you need some names,” Zen offered.

“How big?”

“Six twenty eight.”

Jihyun made the sign of the cross over his chest. “Lord help us.”

“Got that right.”

“Considering the short notice, having the extra names will help, thank you. We should hire three, at least,” Jihyun nodded.

“How’s the bachelor party going?”

Jihyun smirked. “Everything’s already booked. Have you decided where we’re going with Viv?”

Jumin’s brow creased. He wasn’t aware they were planning a bachelorette party, too, all her friends were men for the most part.

“I found the perfect place. You ever heard of Love Land?”

The smirk on Jihyun’s face spread into a wide grin. Jumin couldn’t help the glare that turned towards his two friends. “You mean, that sex theme park in Jeju? That would be hilarious.”

“We’ll go a couple days before the wedding and get her super pampered at one of the luxury saunas. Oh, and I’ve already called up a friend to get her into his salon. He’s already booked for Feburary but he said he’d clear his schedule for me. It’ll take twice as long as normal to fix her hair color and she might as well get her nails done while she’s at it.”

Jumin cleared his throat, glare still in place. “You mean to tell me, a group of men is going to take my fiancée to a _sex theme park_?”

“It’ll be fun for you, too! Maybe she’ll come home with a few new ideas for the bedroom!” Zen’s brows wiggled with his silly grin becoming even sillier. “Even better, souvenirs!”

“ _Zen_.”

“Well, Jaehee is coming with us,” Jihyun started, interrupting the lecture Jumin was preparing to launch into with a pat on the shoulder in a comforting gesture. It didn’t help.

“Plus Minah and Yuna. They’ve been on tour in Japan but Yuna called me back the other day and told me they’d be back in town two weeks before the wedding. Besides, it’ll be just me, Ji, and Ray.”

“Hey,” Jihyun shook him by the arm, lightly but enough to force Jumin to listen. “She might be your fiancée, but she’s still my little sister. You know I’ll take good care of her, right?”

With a sigh, Jumin nodded, conceding the point. There was nothing to for him to worry about when it came to her safety, and Viv would find the entire event entertaining. It wasn’t his place to try to deprive her of fun. Zen startled him by nudging an elbow into his arm.

“So, you have nothing to worry about. You know Jaehee can, and will, kick anyone’s ass, no bodyguards necessary.”

“Can she really? She’s so sweet.”

“Dude, you have no idea. She’s a black belt in Taekwondo. I meant that statement literally.”

“Is there anything else that needs to be done?” Jumin interrupted.

Zen nodded. “You need to open your schedule so you can get your formal wedding pictures taken.”

“We can do that after we come back from our honeymoon.”

“Which you still haven’t figured out where you even want to go. Aren’t you the one who decided Valentine’s day? You’re aware you have six weeks, right?”

“Of course I’m aware.”

“Besides, you don’t to risk it.”

“Risk what?”

“What if Viv can’t fit in her dresses by time you guys get back?”

Jihyun coughed. “You don’t mean…”

“Everyone knows those two fuck like bunnies,” Zen snickered.

_“Zen!”_

Zen and Jihyun laughed at his scolding while Jumin hid a small smile by looking away, embarrassed.

“There’s a lot going on, it’s hard to keep track of,” Jumin admitted after their laughter died down.

“Look, Jaehee bought this book that literally has everything itemized. It’s fucking intimidating but you’ve got to at least help with the basics, right? Or at least give her permission to clear your days when she needs to. She’s pulling out her hair here.”

“I saw that thing,” Jihyun laughed. “Intimidating is the right word, yikes.”

“Why didn’t she say anything to me about it?” Jumin frowned. “I thought we were… becoming friends.”

Zen surprised him with a light hand on his back. “Nah, it’s her, not you. She’s on your level of control freak. Probably why you two work together so well. Asking you for help is always a last resort for her, haven’t you figured that out?”

“Well, yes, at work. I presumed –” as he started that sentence he realized exactly the issue. He’d thought she would approach this differently from her normal work, but he’d asked her to help them in the first place because he knew exactly how she worked. Jumin sighed. “Let me call her now.”

“No!” both Zen and Jihyun yelled at once, startling him and stopping them in their tracks.

“You’re a jerk. You’ll make it sound like she did something wrong. No offense.” Zen shrugged.

“None taken.”

“I’ll tell Viv what Jaehee still needs input on and I’m sure that will go over way easier.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey! Hey, I know,” Jihyun exclaimed, making both men turn to look at him. “New York. You two should go to New York for your honeymoon.”

“No?”

“Not really the ideal honeymoon destination, honestly, Ji.”

“I know, but, hear me out. That’s where you two really, truly, fell in love right? I mean, sure, high school was a thing but it was _different_ when you came back. You two did things that no one else will ever know about. For god’s sake you went to latin dance clubs, slept on random people’s couches, and went out drinking at bars. You were an entirely different person there because you could be. Even I don’t know that person, only _she_ does. If that’s not a specific type of special, I don’t know what is.”

Jihyun was right, there were things he did and parts of his personality that was left there simply because he knew he wouldn’t have that sort of freedom when he was back in Seoul, followed around constantly by cameras. For those four years no one knew who he was or how much money he had and it was one of the best times of his life. Perhaps he could take more time off and they could visit a few friends who still live in the city.

“I’ve heard of none of this,” Zen crossed his arms over his chest. “What the hell, man?”

“He won’t talk about it with anyone, even me. I only know what I do from Viv,” Jihyun informed him. “But I’ll tell you what, you don’t learn how to dance like that in classes, for sure.”

Zen looked back over his shoulder at Jihyun. “You’ve seen the way they dance together?”

“Yeah, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely. I’ve been wondering this whole time. You know what? Seven dances like that, too. What the hell is that story?”

“He spent six months in South America.”

“When did that happen?” Zen shrieked. Jumin cringed and tried to lift a shoulder to cover his ear.

“Years ago, while he still worked for the Agency.”

“Where the fuck was I?”

“College, imbecile,” Jumin scoffed. When was the last time he spent any time with a few other men and just talked about whatever? They almost passed the restaurant, though, and Jumin stopped suddenly, motioning to the building they were standing in front of. “We’re here.”

Their conversation stalled and a visceral moment of tension passed over them when the looked up at the tall building, where the restaurant was on the top floor. Thankfully, all it took was Zen to break it apart again.

“I’m not paying.”

The three of them laughed and went inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Park held onto Jihyun’s arm as the six of them left the restaurant, then took the time to gently pull his coat closed and button it, wrapping his scarf around his face a bit tighter.

“You fuss over me just like my daughter,” Mr. Park chuckled, batting Jihyun’s hand away before tucking a hand into his elbow. “I’m sure she learned that from you. It’s nice to see you again, Jihyun.”

“Likewise, Mr. Park.”

“I’m sorry you had to come back on account of me, but I’m doing fine.”

“I didn’t—”

“—of course you did. You’ve always been a bad liar.”

Jihyun smiled sheepishly. “You might be right.”

“There, there, son, you just take care of my little bird. Jumin’s going to need help, she’s a handful.”

“She’s always taken care of me, so I’d be happy to return the favor.”

“I don’t see them, I wonder where they are. Seven’s car is right here, though,” Zen was looking around at the other restaurants and stores up and down the street. “It would make sense if they stopped in somewhere, but I don’t see –”

“Mr. Han, your son and his friends are so sweet, thank you for inviting me out today,” Nadia, the beautiful pastry chef, curled an arm around Han’s and leaned close to him to talk.

“We couldn’t discuss their wedding plans without you,” Han grinned. “I appreciate your taking charge of catering for us, it seems the venue is giving my son’s secretary a run for her money with the menu. Some of the executives are difficult to please.”

“I guess you can be if you’re in their position,” she laughed, “but you must agree ten entrees is a bit much.”

“It is, but there’s not much I can do about it, unfortunately.”

“Well, It’s the least I can do considering the amount of business you’ve brought to my bakery by carrying my products. Besides, it’s no work at all, I have plenty of friends in the industry who would jump at the chance of working with you.”

“I certainly hope so.”

“There they are!” Zen practically shouted, and immediately launched into a sprint down the street. Yoosung’s arms were laden with bags and Seven had an arm over Viv’s shoulders, talking animatedly about something. When Zen reached them, he tugged Viv into a big hug and kept his arm wrapped around her waist while he walked her down the street to meet them, talking directly in her ear.

Viv’s face went through several emotions, from surprise to outright disbelief. She looked at him, mouth open in shock, looked at their group standing by Seven’s car, then back to Zen with an indignant pout that reminded Jihyun of when they were kids and she’d do that to get what she wanted. Usually some sort of sweet snack their nanny wouldn’t let her have.

Something Jihyun never thought he would see happened then: when Zen released Viv, she hopped her way over to Jumin and wrapped her arms around his neck, he returned the hug with his arms around her back, simultaneously pulling her up to her toes and bending forward to meet her. They shared a small kiss, wide smiles, soft laughter, and a few words before they let each other go. All entirely in public. Jihyun was sure there were pictures being taken of them.

Then Viv bounced over to them, her father receiving the next hug and a peck on the cheek, the hug notably a disguised way to check how he was doing. She pulled his scarf up over his mouth from where it had fell when he greeted her.

Jihyun couldn’t help but grin when she hugged him next, squeezing extra tight and taking his face in her hands when she pulled away for a moment as if she was making sure he was really there.

A familiar motion for him, placing a hand on her head and smoothing it down her hair, almost without thinking. “You should be wearing a hat, you’re going to catch a cold.”

Mr. Park laughed, muffled by his scarf, “Both of you, always fussing over people. We aren’t going far, she’ll be fine. Don’t ignore your father-in-law, little bird.”

“Oh! Excuse me,” she practically chirped, moving to Mr. Han.

Jihyun was surprised to find that he hugged her as well, then she shook Miss Nadia’s hands emphatically. Jumin seemed to feel the same way as when Jihyun looked up, he found Jumin’s expression to be one of slight confusion.

“So, what are we doing?” Saeran asked, having taken some bags from Yoosung to help carry them.

“I have to go to the office, shouldn’t be more than ten minutes. Miss Kang informed me there are a few pertinent documents to sign and without them work will be held up for several more weeks. I have made the appointment for us to tour the venue and choose adornments, any of you are welcome to come with us. After that, we have the evening free…”

“Which means we can pick?” Seven grinned. “We’ll come up with something good.”

“Where will we be taking you, Mr. Park?” Jihyun asked, keeping his voice down.

“Home for me, I’m getting a bit tired. It’s just down the street some—”

“Not necessary, Mr. Park,” Seven seemed to appear out of nowhere, motioning to his bright yellow Mercedes. “Get in.”

“Oh, I couldn’t inconvenience you, Saeyoung, I can—”

“No way. Viv would shit bricks and bludgeon in my pretty face in with them. For everyone’s safety, let me drive you home.”

“Yes, alright,” Mr. Park laughed, letting go of Jihyun’s arm to start saying goodbye to everyone. A few moments later, he was climbing into the door Seven was holding open for him.

“Chauffer Seven will meet you guys at the C&R building.” With a salute, he climbed in and drove off.

“Are you sure you shouldn’t have gone with him, Mr. Han?” Jihyun asked, glancing over his shoulder at him and Miss Nadia, bringing up the rear of their group as they walked.

“It’s good for you to walk,” Miss Nadia answered instead, with Han nodding and grinning at her. “Brisk cold circulates the blood, keeps you young.”

“Certainly if you say so it must be true,” Han laughed.

Jihyun turned back around, leaving the pair to their conversation. Jumin, Viv, and Zen were leading the way, talking about something that he couldn’t hear more than laughter. Yoosung and Saeran were talking in front of him about what were in the bags they were carrying.

“Seriously, you’d like Monster Hunter. I mean, it’s different than the sort of stuff we typically play, but the four of us can play as a group. And the monsters are pretty cool. Viv loves the T-Rex for some reason.”

“Well, she did buy it for me, so I’ll at least try it out,” Yoosung shrugged. “I’m not exactly the Loot and Shoot type.”

“I know, but you do like complex crafting systems, and the combat is pretty damn nuanced. It changes drastically depending on your weapon, so despite the whole, kill the thing and loot it, aspect, it’s not really a loot and shoot. Plus, it’s purely PvE.”

“If you say so,” he laughed. “Seriously, I’m going to play it! When we get the time, at least.”

He had missed this, his friends being themselves, being with each other. The way they came together was perfect, the way they worked together was like a well-crafted clock. It didn’t matter what was going on with any one of them at any particular time, or even if they were having trouble within the group, together they were safe.

“Yo,” Zen startled him out of his thoughts, and Jihyun looked to his right to see the silver haired man smile. “So, how have you been?”

“Good, good,” Jihyun couldn’t help but smile back.

“Just curious, you know, because we haven’t seen you in a couple of years. What do you plan on doin’ now that you’re back?”

“For the moment, I’ve been just indulging myself with spending all my time with you guys. A bit irresponsible of me, I suppose.”

“I understand, you just got back. I probably would be doing the same thing.”

“You’re too much of a workaholic to sit around for long,” he chuckled.

“Yeah, but, you know, extenuating circumstances and all that.”

The conversation lulled, as the question prompted a short answer from him though other people would likely have much more to say. Jihyun supposed that’s what happens when you get used to life moving slowly and everyone else’s was going a break-neck pace. It wouldn’t be so bad to make plans now that he’d decided to stay.

“I started painting while I was away. I used to draw when I was a kid, but… you know how it is, parents and their ideals and such.”

“All too well.”

“I’ve sold a few. I have enough for a small gallery showing, but they need to be finessed a bit before they’re ready for the public.”

“That’s fantastic! You’re a regular renaissance man.”

“Not at all,” he laughed at Zen’s good-natured teasing.

“It was awesome jammin’ together the other day. Just like old times, right? We should do it again.”

“I was surprised I even remembered what I was doing, but I guess you never really forget. I’m looking forward to playing again more often.”

Their conversation was interrupted when Saeran sighed, a hand tugging the back of Viv’s shirt. “Fuckin’ hell, man. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Mr. Han was already lost, having stopped to speak to the press a half a block back, a huge crowd starting to form around them and several police officers attempting to hold them back. Then they realized many of the people in the crowd were teenage girls.

One shrill shriek of “it’s Carpe Diem!” escalated into a hundred in second.

Jihyun couldn’t help himself, he grinned at Zen’s panicked face when even more screaming of his name exploded over the sound as he looked back. Jumin stopped abruptly when people began to cross the street, most of them men, whispering to each other and pointing. That’s when Jihyun realized they recognized Viv. Everyone began looking around for a route to escape.

Too late. Several cameramen squeezed themselves through the crowd and slunk up to them awkwardly. Zen squeezed through the group to join Jumin and Viv at the front of the group, placing his hands on Viv’s shoulders and pulled her behind him. Then he slung an arm over Jumin’s shoulder.

“Mr. Han! We just have a few questions for you!”

Jumin turned to look at him and nodded towards an alley. Saeran had already handed him the bags he was carrying and lifted Viv on his back, then quickly disappeared down the alley. Jihyun ducked and pushed Yoosung to follow Saeran.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _Five blocks is all you need to get jumped by the paparazzi,_ Seven, amused, crossed his legs as he sat in one of the armchairs in front of Jumin’s desk. Not only had he been able to get Mr. Park home, but he’d accompanied him to his condo and waited until his live-in nurse had checked him out before leaving. Several alerts pinged his phone from a small app he had created that would tell him when any of his flagged ‘persons of interest’ had any sort of media coverage.

He was just opening the live broadcast of Jumin and Zen when Viv, Jihyun, Saeran and Yoosung walked through the door. Jihyun sat in the other armchair while Saeran and Yoosung took the couch and Viv leaned over the top of his chair to peer at his phone.

“Anything?”

“It’s live.”

“Oh, no,” Jihyun laughed.

“Seems like the cameras only picked up the smallest amount of movement when you guys escaped thanks to Zen’s weird ass maneuver. They changed the framing to focus chest up.”

“Well, at least there’s that,” Yoosung sighed. “That was kind of scary.”

Viv huffed a laugh above his head. “Those two are used to the media, they will handle it fine.”

On his phone, he watched someone push a magazine into Jumin’s hands, which he looked down at and hummed. Zen glanced at it while he was answering someone’s question.

_“What do you think of this risqué image on the cover of Financial Monthly, Mr. Han?”_

_Jumin smirked. “Certainly it’s not the photo I expected to be selected for the cover, but I’m not… disappointed.”_

_Zen cackled, “Just say your woman looks incredible, man!”_

_“I would hate to be conceited, but…” he glanced up at Zen and that smirk spread into a grin. “It would be remiss to say anything less.”_

_Arm dropping from its place on Jumin’s shoulder, Zen took a step forward. “I think it’s time for us to go. We’re pretty busy, ya’know?”_

“But what about Han’s interview?” Viv asked, “That’s who I would really be worried about.”

Seven had the same sentiment. That oblivious old man could ruin anything, walking around openly with another woman on his arm. Did types like him ever learn from their mistakes? Considering their own father, Seven didn’t think so. It took a couple of minutes to find it, but he was able to go to a different station’s online broadcast to find it.

_“Oh yes, they make quite a handsome couple, don’t they?”_

_“Aren’t you concerned about the salacious picture of your son and his fiancée?” asked the reporter, holding up the magazine._

_“No, no, it’s an advertisement and sex sells. It makes perfect sense and the sales numbers will show the decision was a sound one.”_

_“With the many scandals both of them have been involved with since their engagement, do you think it is better for them to stay out of the media more?”_

_“Whatever for?” Miss Nadia spoke up, looking upset with the question as a hand touched her mouth. “Would you stop working to take care of your family due to a few rumors? They’re adults, they have responsibilities, and by nature of their jobs and poor Jumin’s last name has all of you following him around as if he’s some… some cash cow! Shouldn’t you, by obligation to report facts, be more active in publishing news that has been verified as truth instead of petty rumors?”_

_“Ah, Ma’am, if we might ask who you are…?”_

_“Nadia. I own Milaya, a small bakery across town. We are providing the desserts for the happy couple’s wedding. We were just discussing their wedding cake, and I’m eager to start designing it.”_

_“Can we have any clues about what it will look like?” one of the female reporters almost squeaked._

_“Well, I’m sure you’re aware of Miss Vivere’s lucrative career as a songwriter, but you might not know that Jumin is quite the accomplished cellist. That’s all I’m at liberty to say for the moment.”_

_“Are you two dating?”_

_“No, of course not, Mr. Han has a beautiful fiancée, he is simply the picture of a perfect gentleman. Isn’t that right, Mr. Han?”_

_“Yes, thank you, Nadia. Now, we’ll be late for an appointment, so if you would—”_

The broadcast stopped there, but all the talk of this magazine cover had Seven curious as to what it looked like. He googled the magazine.

“She’s pretty good with the press,” Viv noted and Jihyun nodded.

“Even though they’ve been seeing each other she still mentioned Glam to throw everyone off. It’s a bold move,” Saeran’s voice traveled across the room. “Hopefully it will light a fire under Han’s ass to know she’s very aware of Han’s other relationships.”

“Well, Glam is already the ‘other woman’,” Yoosung kicked off his shoes and curled his legs under him on the couch. “I can’t imagine she’d think he’d stay faithful when she’s still married.”

“Ray, thanks for the tip,” Viv moved around the chair to perch on the edge of Jumin’s desk.

“No problem. I know how to deal with men like him.”

“You know she tried to pester Mr. Han about their wedding at their engagement dinner? We were talking about arrangements for our wedding, but she got pretty upset. Had an actual argument in front of everyone. Looks like the illusion is starting to unravel since he has someone else to look at.” Viv laughed. “I can’t believe it was that easy.”

“It still may not be a thing yet, but we can be hopeful,” Saeran was trying to temper expectations for the outcome no matter how promising the whole thing looked. His brother could be a pessimist.

The door to the office finally opened, Zen and Jumin coming through the door and closing it again. Jumin circled his desk and sat down in his chair with a tired sigh and Zen joined Saeran and Yoosung on the couch.

“We should probably wait until they’re gone from in front of the building to leave,” Zen told them. “They followed us after the interview.”

Viv had joined Jumin, sitting on one thigh and he handed her the magazine. “This is the picture they picked for the cover of Financial Monthly? Seriously?”

“I was surprised, too. I don’t even remember taking this picture.”

Seven looked up the magazine, not that it was hard, it was plastered all over every news site. It was hot all right, but certainly not as 'risqué' as the press made it seem when they were interrogating the Hans. Jumin was tying Viv’s hands behind her back with a gold ribbon. Seven guessed they had taken this picture while Jumin and Viv were unaware, a specific smile reserved only for Viv on Jumin’s lips as he leaned forward to speak in her ear. Everyone knew that look by now, one that they would tease him about relentlessly whenever they could. Viv had turned her head to make eye contact with him, and had given him one of those almost-smiles that their fans found so sexy.

With a whistle, Seven did his best rendition of “Bow chicka wow wow!”

Jihyun leaned forward and took the magazine from Viv, then lifted his eyebrows at Jumin. “I can see why they’re losing their minds over this. Look at his face.”

“These two are annoying with it, too, every day, all day,” Zen was grinning, speaking with a teasing tone. Viv rubbed her face and shook her head.

“I can’t wait to see Jumin ‘the romantic’ for myself,” Jihyun laughed and Jumin sat straighter in his chair as if he was being scrutinized.

“I’m going to chuck a heel at both your faces,” Viv complained, earning more laughter.

“I want to see!” Yoosung leaned forward to catch the magazine when it was thrown to him. “Holy smokes, who is that even?”

Saeran chuckled. “Nice.”

The headline said _‘With Sweet and Spice, Even Work is Nice: Heir to C &R International and Award Winning Music Producer Explain How To Live Life and Love Deeply While Being Busy as Hell.’_

“We should get going to see that venue for the wedding, otherwise we are going to need to somehow take off at the same time again,” Jumin chuckled. “The rest of you are free to go our place for the time being, since it is a short walk from here. I’m sure it will be cumbersome to go home and come back before dinner.”

“That sounds good, we should get going, then.”

“I’m going to go see the venue with you two,” Zen got up, heading for the door. “I think I have the best idea of what already been done since Jaehee has made this whole, spreadsheet thing we keep updated between the two of us.”

“She really does think of everything, doesn’t she?” Viv laughed, waving a bit around the room. “See you guys in a bit.”

Zen opened the door to find someone standing in front of it who cleared his throat and held large orange envelope to his chest as if he was terrified someone would take it. “Um, Zen! Sir! Is, um, Mr. Jumin Han here?”

Jumin moved to the door and placed a hand on the side to let Zen move out of the way. “I’m here.”

“Um! Sir! You’ve been served.”

The orange envelope was shoved into Jumin’s hands and the guy bowed low before turning and practically running away. Jumin looked at the envelope and sighed, then turned back into the office and closed the door to open it.

“What’s that mean?” Yoosung asked, having settled back down to sit on the arm of the couch after putting his coat and shoes back on.

“It means someone has filed a lawsuit against me, but more likely the company. Usually this goes directly to our law department but it’s not unheard of for myself or my father to be ‘served’ in person. I am just going to…”

Seven sat up, a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach when Jumin stopped talking to read through the first several pages a second time. Then, he plopped down into his desk chair.

“Jumin? Something wrong?” Viv cautiously returned to his desk to hover nearby.

“I’m sorry, my love, I think we’re going to need to reschedule.” 

Jumin became quiet and somewhat… dazed? Was that a normal way to describe it? It was the complete opposite of what most people would do in this situation, and that made Seven even more freaked out. After the police searched Viv's home for drugs, Seven had been waiting for another move to be made, and for the Chairman to be parading around his new 'girlfriend', shit had to hit the fan, soon, right?

“Yo, out with it,” Seven snapped. “What’s going on?”

Jumin laid the stack of paper on the desk, leaned back in his chair, and took a deep breath. Everyone in the room likely did it with him.

“It’s for unpaid child support and neglect.”

Viv’s brows rose. “What the fuck?”

“According to this lawsuit, I have a five-year-old child.”

 


	15. Timeless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends are friends because they take care of each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {Timeless} is inspired by [Your Song by Sam Kim (with accompaniment)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EFQefZb_cg)

Sujin leaned over the balcony to look out over the ocean, white sand licked by turquoise water and fading into an ultramarine sky. Despite being nearly December, it was hot below the equator, the wind smelled of summer and salt. She took a long drink of the water bottle she was holding, having half a mind to ignore her hangover and go out to enjoy the water.

The long weekend was already full of memories. When Jumin showed up at her dorm with a pair of flight tickets and a smile, he gave her a half hour to pack. She bought a bathing suit when they got here and they spent the first day playing in the sand and letting the surf wash away the worry around studying for mid-term exams. When the night fell and it became too dark and too cold on the beach, she dragged him to the live music played by a local steel drum band.

She could still feel the bell-like ring of pure joy in her skin.

Su didn’t bother to turn around when a pair of arms curled around her waist and the profile of a face pressed to the back of her neck. She just closed her eyes to enjoy his affection while it lasted.

“Good morning.”

“How are you?”

“Fine, a bit of a headache, but that’s to be expected.”

“I should have kept a better eye on how much you had to drink.”

“I can be responsible for myself, Jumin,” she huffed.

“I know.”

The silence that fell between them was more tense than usual, and Sujin knew exactly why. Something happened the night before, under the influence of liquid courage, that had put him on edge. She didn’t exactly black out completely, she knew she’d tried to seduce him into her bed, mortifying memories that came back in fragments. As far as she remembered, he was worried and somewhat amused, but he’d rejected her advances and put her to bed, reading a book aloud until she fell asleep. Not exactly a vacation-worthy time, honestly.

She sighed, tilting her water bottle against her lips.

“Suji,” he started, finally, “do you remember last night at all?”

“A bit.”

“We… nothing happened.”

“I wasn’t exactly worried about that part,” she laughed soundlessly, a silent puffing of air through her lips.

“Your explicit trust is undeserved.”

“It’s not that you haven’t earned it, Jumin.”

He hummed and she felt him nod, then he stood up straighter and pulled her back further, away from the railing and back to his chest, placed his chin on her head.

“Is that it? We’re not going to talk about it?”

“I’m still debating what we should do with all this.”

“With what?”

Jumin didn’t answer but she already knew. The tension between them could be like a blazing fire sometimes, probably only held back by Jumin’s sense of moral pride. She knew she wasn’t the one who was keeping them from sleeping together, if the previous night indicated at all.

“Juju, I’m sorry, I never want to make you uncomfortable. Last night, I—”

“That’s not exactly it, either, I’m far from uncomfortable,” he sighed, arms squeezing slightly tighter. “This is a lot harder to say than it seems like it should be.”

It was difficult for Sujin to talk to people when she couldn’t see their face, so she turned to look at him, and as she did his arms let her go. She didn’t realize he was still undressed until now, only a pair of deep violet silk pajama pants hung low on his hips. A glance towards the beach prevented her from looking down until she felt him take her hands in his, taking her water bottle and putting it somewhere, and tugged her forward.

“Come here.”

He caught her again around the waist, but she was too preoccupied by the devouring kiss he took her breath with. A hand at the back of her head kept her in place when his own tilted enough to taste every part of her mouth. When he withdrew, panting, he leaned his forehead against hers, palms cupping the sides of her jaw.

“I love you, Suji,” he told her, but something about it sounded sad. It usually did these days. “The things you wanted me to do to you, I…”

His eyes closed, a grimace marred his face for a moment as he took a deep, stabilizing breath.

“I almost did them, every word plus a thousand more. I’d keep you in this room for our entire vacation until we were both satisfied. But I can’t do that, I won’t, I love you too much to ignore the risks.”

Here, things were so different from home that sometimes she forgot this wasn’t the reality of their circumstances. This place where they could truly explore the possibilities of being someone that was completely themselves, that they could express the affection they had for each other, it was a temporary gift. They’d return to Korea after exams, and they would need to go back to pretending that this didn’t exist.

“I would never forgive myself if I got you pregnant,” he said, finally spelling out his fear word for word, a thumb wiped the saliva from the corner of her mouth. “I refuse to ruin your life for momentary pleasure, do you understand?”

With a sigh, Sujin nodded again, allowing herself to be gathered up to his chest with his arms around her shoulders and a kiss pressed to her forehead, fingers threading through her hair.

“I could say that you’re being overly cautious, and that if something did happen we could figure it out together, but that would be fooling myself, wouldn’t it?”

“Our feelings regarding our own futures have never been taken into consideration. I doubt it will be when we return.”

“Yeah, I guess when we’re both betrothed to other people, it’s hard to believe otherwise.”

“I don’t want to think about the repercussions that would fall on you, unfairly, in spite of my wishes. If we were to have a child, I would want to keep them, I would want to keep you and anything, anyone who comes from the sincerity of our love for each other.”

“I know you would.”

“It is the worst thing I could do to you.”

“You wouldn’t be doing anything to me that I—”

“—of course I would. I should be protecting you, and no matter what anyone else thinks, this is as much my choice as it is yours. I can choose to think of your welfare over my desires, I can choose your future over my present. There’s nothing to consider, in terms of responsibility.”

“I’m sorry, Juju.”

“Don’t be. I want to love you, Suji…” he sighed, sounding tired and speaking slowly, as if every word was laborious, “physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally; I need to love you in every way possible before my mind and body will be at peace. It’s a war that I fight against myself, have been, since I was able to comprehend what this feeling was. I thought it would go away if I experienced relationships with other people, but my heart comes back to you every time.”

When she looked up at him, he was looking out over the ocean, as if it could give him the answers he sought in its depths.

“You already have the most secret parts of me, Su,” he confessed in a whisper. “So, let me keep these moments close until I can keep you next to me. When we go home, all this will be from another lifetime.”

There was nothing she could say that would adequately express what she wanted to, so she reached up to turn his attention back to her, curled her fingers behind his ears and guided him back to her, stood on the tips of her toes to meet him. Soft and slow, loving, in direct contrast of their earlier, passionate kiss.

“I want to know your dreams,” he requested, lips brushing against her own.

“It’s nothing I haven’t told you before, Jumin,” she grinned, her heart melting into a puddle at the sound of this rare, tender voice.

“Then, tell me again,” chuckling, soft pecks at the corners of her mouth.

“Ah, how do I say this?” She rocked on balls of her feet, letting their smiles cross each other’s again. “I wish… to stand beside you on a stage again and heal broken hearts with stories of hope made of melodies. I dream of harmonies that will lull stars and our children to sleep. I hope to wake to your smile and fall asleep to the sound of your voice each day for the rest of my life…”

Fingers brushed over the crest of her ears and trailed down her jawline, down her neck. Lips pressed from her forehead to her nose, both cheeks, to her chin, her eyelids when her eyes closed to enjoy this gentle affection. It was as if he was trying to memorize the landscape of her face.

“One day…” she inhaled, exhaled slowly and deliberately, her smile becoming a show of her embarrassment. “I wish to hear the song that’s inside you, the one I know lives hidden away just under your tongue and at the tips of your fingers. I want to listen to the music made from your heartbeat, the air in your lungs. The words that are ready to leap from your soul and show me the truths you didn’t know you had.”

When she opened her eyes he was staring right into hers, the brightness of the sun shrinking his pupils and brightening gray into a navy blue. He was smiling, face free from the usual tension, premature wrinkles smoothed, slight stubble on his jaw, unruly hair, a dusting of the lightest freckles that appeared from being out in the sun on the top of his shoulders and over his nose.

It amazed her when she realized for maybe the millionth time how deeply she loved him, that this was enough.

“I wish to see you smile this honestly every day.”

“What about a wish just for you?”

“For me?”

“Yes, for you and you alone.”

“I wish… for a love that lasts lifetimes.”

“Then that is the one I promise to keep.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Jumin didn’t sleep much last night.

The very first thing Jumin did was have a DNA test done, within hours of having received the lawsuit. Expedited testing would give them results within forty-eight hours. Tomorrow. He could have had them today if he hadn’t taken the test at four in the afternoon. No amount of money could make the process faster than that.

Viv had went with plans as scheduled, taking Zen to the venue to pick out decorations and other details for their wedding. Unexpectantly, Mr. Park had called and asked her to stay the night with him, and other than a phone call to say ‘goodnight’ and this morning’s text messages, he hadn’t spoken to her.

One hand smoothed over a cat-shaped piece of paper, white with spots of yellow and light brown. On it was written ‘ _you are the light that guides my heart when sorrow blocks my way forward_.’ More than once, Jumin had to ignore the question of whether or not Viv would marry him now.

His mind was determined to think of the worst possible outcome.

He’d read over the paperwork back to front a hundred times in the last twenty-four hours and there was always one detail that made him weary: he didn’t recognize the mother’s name. Jumin wasn’t the kind of guy who had one night stands, even in college where that would have been deemed normal considering the typical debauchery of a university student, the only women he invited into his bed were those he was in a relationship with at the time. Whether it lasted two weeks or six months, he knew them, especially their names. It wasn’t as if there were enough for him to have forgotten.

Thinking on his past relationships, those during his four years of college were the ones that were valuable to him. Each one teaching him something new about himself, something new about people that he’d never consider, something alarming, interesting, beautiful about a culture that he assumed he knew everything about. No, he’d never forget the names of those precious people who played a pivotal part in who he was today, the man he was proud to be.

The plethora of women he’d been set up with over the course of the six years since then? Most of them he couldn’t remember their faces nor did he know their names, the vast majority of which he never bothered to meet in the first place. He hadn’t chosen them, didn’t know them, had not pursued them because he was attracted to something about them. They were just there, usually because of some sort of business deal, and as such there was no reason to put the effort into making it work.

Shuffling the pages of the lawsuit in front of him, Jumin was compelled to go over the details of it again. For the thousandth time reassuring himself that this simply could not be his child, in his mind thinking through his defenses, brick by brick building a shield to finally convince himself enough so he could get back to work.

The age of the child would mean he was in his senior year of college, and according to the child’s birthday and even giving a generous range of conception and the possibility of being premature, he would have needed to have sex with this woman within the last three or four months of his university career.

Viv had become the romantic focus of his life by then, despite never ‘officially’ dating. Once she arrived in America, every time they could manage the three hour drive from Boston to New York was spent together, and any free time they couldn’t was spent working their asses off so that they could make time. Any breaks long enough for a flight was a trip they took together, and summers were spent in Korea. It would be a lie to say he hadn't dated anyone else after she'd arrived, but the last semester was entirely engulfed by his unrelenting feelings for her.

It wasn’t a story that would hold up in court, to be frank, given the reputation of his father. Even if they had been dating, it wouldn’t exclude the possibility of infidelity, and bringing in his relationship with his current fiancée would only complicate things further.

There was always the possibility he’d gotten so drunk that he didn’t remember what had happened. There was the possibility there was someone on campus nearby, perhaps a mutual moment of need. He had never woken up in a situation that seemed compromised, and even if he had it was always with her. They’d laugh it off and continue their day as if nothing happened...

With the slam of paper on his desk, Jumin sighed, dragging his hands through his hair. He was letting his thoughts spiral out of control. He was absolutely sure this child wasn’t his, the DNA test would prove it, and that was the end of that. He didn’t even know why he was ruminating on it so much. There was no reason to be so worried.  

A knock at his office door startled him, then he repressed the urge to roll his eyes at his own antics and tucked the papers into his desk. “Yes?”

“Chairman Han is here to see you,” Miss Kang announced.

“Let him in, thank you.”

The last person he wanted to see at the moment was his father, but considering the situation, he would be involved. There was nothing to be done for that aspect of the matter. The best he could do was to get him out of his office as soon as possible.

“Jumin, good afternoon, son, how are you?” he entered amiably enough, rounding one of the armchairs in front of Jumin’s desk and sitting down. “You look a bit glum.”

“I am sure it comes as no surprise.”

“You’ve never let things like this get to you,” his father smiled. It would help if his father took any issues seriously. “I understand, but I’m sure Sujin wouldn’t hold something like this against you.”

There were a dozen things Jumin could think of that gave Viv a legitimate reason to hold it against him.

“Besides, a little money here or there isn’t going to hurt us.”

“That child is not mine, Father.”

“I believe you, I do, but… well, it’s the most likely that the court won’t believe that. But I heard from the lawyers that you took a DNA test already, that’s good. In the event that the little boy does end up being yours, you don’t have to claim him. There’s nothing in the law that says that you need to.”

Jumin stopped reading over the contract he had pulled out in an attempt to distract himself from this very conversation and looked at his father, likely looking as angry as he felt. “Let me be frank, Father; if Sujin learned that child was mine and I refused to take care of him, not only would our engagement end, but our friendship, also.”

“I can’t imagine why she’d do that, are you sure you’re not overreacting?”

“I’ve known the woman for twenty-four years, I can bet money on it.”

With a shrug, Chairman Han leaned back in his chair. “Every businessman and politician in every country has at least one unclaimed child. It would be silly to call off your engagement for that.”

“Father, please.”

“It’s the truth, I just can’t understand why any woman would—”

“—you don’t need to understand, Father, simply _know_ that is how she would react. Your reassurance is unnecessary, as that child is not mine.”

“Is it possible that you’re wrong?”

“No.”

“I trust you, son,” the Chairman leaned forward to pat Jumin’s hand, a smile spreading his lips. “Don’t worry too much, these sort of cases don’t take long.”

“Are you telling me you have experience with this sort of thing?”

With a dismissive wave of his hand, his father shrugged. “There have been a few, of course, it is something that men like us deal with.”

Jumin cursed himself for his sense of morbid curiosity and stopped asking questions.

 

 

***

 

 

Viv was in the worst mood this morning. Between her father’s bad health day, dealing with the wedding venue being difficult, and Seven not being able to be in the sound studio because he was digging up dirt on the lawsuit that Jumin was served with, the icing on the shit cake was the first meeting of the day was with none other than the communications department.

Despite their protests, Mr. Han had approved Gyun’s request to allow advertising to be done in house for Carpe Diem. She still didn't know why he wanted to break protocol in order to work with them, which didn't make sense. Besides, he already had enough on his plate without adding promotional advertising for AM, didn't he know he wouldn't just be responsible for  _only_ their group? Or had he worked something out where he was working with them and that's it?

The end game couldn't be awards and seeing her everyday, that's for sure. 

 **[Seven 1:02pm]** Sorry don’t kill the messenger  
**[Seven 1:03pm]** There’s been a leek  
**[Seven 1:05pm]** smacky smack smack

Viv didn’t really have time to look at whatever the link was, but if she guessed, it could really only have two subjects. She sighed and tucked her phone back into her purse and looked up at the C&R building. Too much was happening for them to also have to deal with the press.

“Good morning, Miss Park,” a slippery voice caught her off-guard when her work bag was plucked from her arms without preamble. “We finally have the opportunity to work together, though not in the capacity that I had hoped.”

It had been a couple weeks since she’d needed to encounter Gyun, maybe even a month. Time that ended too soon, if she had a say in things, but she didn’t. The Head of Communications would be working closely with her for an indefinite amount of time.

“Your decision not to join Carpe Diem in a more permanent capacity is truly disappointing,” he continued, not caring she hadn’t answered. “You understand you are the appeal of the group?”

“I’ve seen the numbers, that’s simply not the case,” Viv shrugged. “I don’t know why you’re so pressed to convince me to join the band.”

“Perhaps it is the challenge. I have never offered a young woman a lucrative job in music and have it so readily turned down every time. An anomaly, if you will.”

“You realize I already have a lucrative job in music, a much more lucrative job than being an idol would ever get me?”

“Rather, it does not come with the allure of fame.”

“So, I’m just another conquest for you?” she held back the sneer that almost got pulled up with that statement.

“Not quite, close, but not quite.”

The way he looked at her made her feel very uncomfortable, it always had, but it seemed to have gotten worse since she’d seen him last. Was it her or was it him? She couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was making her stomach churn. Instead of needing to stand out in the cold and talk to this man in private, Viv turned to start going inside the building. At least in the relative safety of the meeting there would be other people in the conversation.

“Miss Park!” someone yelled and began to run over to her, and she inwardly cringed, trying to dodge the crowd so that she could get inside the building. “Just one question! Miss Park! Did you know that Jumin Han had a son?”

It was like someone had punched her in the chest and knocked the wind out of her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Perhaps the constant media coverage was becoming too much for her, perhaps this was the last straw in a string of events that were designed to make her lose her sanity. Barely three months in a relationship that was being watched for every word and every step, she had to learn how to handle it. This would be the rest of her life.

Her head shook and she forced herself to move forward.

“Miss Park! Wait! One more question!”

She couldn’t leave, her way blocked. “Please let me out, I must get to work.”

“Do you plan to call off your wedding if Jumin Han is the father?”

“I’ll be late—”

“What if he is the father? What will you do?”

“I need to go—”

“Just one more question!”

“Escort these people off the property.”

An arm wrapped over her shoulders and draped a jacket over her head, pulled her close to his chest. A heavy cologne she was much too familiar with, but she couldn’t look up.

“If they refuse to leave then have them arrested, they’re obstructing our ability to do business.”

A chorus of ‘yes, sir’s echoed around them, the sound of smashing equipment and yelling people gave way to a path they were able to finally emerge through. The jacket was removed and her shoulders pat down before she looked up and found the one person she didn’t ever want to be indebted to still standing in front of her.

“I’ll let the department know you’ll be a few minutes late. You should fix your hair,” Gyun told her, pulling his suit jacket back on and buttoning it.

With a nod she uttered a small, bewildered, “Thank you,” and steered herself into the bathroom. There was no way in hell she was ever going to be able to live that down. He was never going to let that go. And with their situation being the one that it was, she couldn’t just be mean or rude to him for the sake it.

If things could get worse, she didn’t exactly know how.

In the safety of the bathroom, Viv crouched in a corner and allowed the darkness at the edge of her vision to consume her.

 

 

***

 

 

Jihyun carefully closed the door behind him to the master bedroom, having finally gotten Viv to bed. He picked up his glass of wine from the coffee table before he sat between Zen and Saeyoung, crossing his legs. Saeyoung was typing faster than Jihyun could follow and Zen was balancing a beer on his knee with his phone in his other hand. Yoosung sat across from them, Saeran on the floor with a computer of his own in his lap, probably typing just as fast as Saeyoung.

“Execution by the court of public opinion,” Zen was saying, his attention turning to Jihyun. “How is she?”

“Sleeping, finally,” he smiled, though it didn’t feel happy. It was one where he tried to reassure the other men in the room who were worried about their friend.

“Has this happened before?” Saeran asked, sounding genuinely concerned. “Jumin said she’s been having small anxiety attacks once in a while since Mr. Park was diagnosed, but never blacking out. Is this a new thing?”

“No, it used to happen often when she was a child,” Jihyun revealed, feeling like he was giving away a secret that he shouldn’t. “It started, perhaps when she was four, and continued until she was about twelve. They never really went away, but she learned how to control them better.”

“Why didn’t anyone else know about this?”

“It was something we handled on our own, we didn’t even know what was happening to her. Sometimes she’d come home from school and say ‘the thing happened again’ and we just knew what she was talking about because we’d seen it happen to her. We didn’t know it even had a name until we were ten. When Mr. Park went to rehab for a few months, she stayed with us. That's when my father recognized what was happening to her.”

“We?”

“Jumin and I.”

“When the fuck is that jerk getting home?” Zen almost sneered, agitation building in every muscle in his body.

“He’s doing the only thing he can do to keep Viv safe, and that’s to do everything he can to end this as quickly as possible,” Saeran, sternly, but rather gently told him, looking up from his computer for only a moment.

Jihyun briefly wondered where this young man had come from, the more he saw of him the more he knew he didn’t know him. He possessed a different kind of strength than the reclusive child he’d met as a teenager, and a different sort of kindness had emerged from anger that had been bred into him by his parents.

“Then what can we do? Just sit around and stare at the wall until that stupid test comes back?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Saeyoung frowned across the couch at Zen’s temper, the usual humor he guarded himself with completely gone. “No matter how much information we gather, it’ll mean nothing if that test doesn’t come back negative.”

“That can’t actually be true, can it?” Yoosung asked, placing a hand on Saeran’s shoulder.

“Jumin claims that it’s not his kid. He gave me a list of names to double check and none of them match the mother. A few of them have kids, but that makes sense considering it’s been six years, but it’s impossible that he’d be the father of any of them as they're all under the age of four. I've searched Harvard's student records for the name of the mother and she's never been a student there, I've even checked names at Julliard, plus all his accounts within six months of the kid's possible conception. He was in the United States at the time, and other than occasional trips between Boston and New York, he wasn't within a thousand miles of Korea.”

“It’s sort of… awkward to talk about Jumin’s sex life like this,” the blonde pointed out with a blush on his face. “I mean, we’re all adults here and it shouldn’t be awkward, right? But it’s… Jumin.”

“The list was longer than I would have given him credit for,” Saeyoung laughed, “but considering the circumstances I doubt he would make them up. Plus, he’s had correspondence with a few of them as recent as a month ago. Innocuous emails, one is an accomplished businesswoman he’d consulted on expanding business into the United States, another sent him a congratulations card on his engagement. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but he’s on good terms with every single past partner.”

“I’m not surprised at all,” Jihyun said aloud without meaning to, garnering the attention of everyone in the room. “I mean, I just know he cherished each of his relationships. Even the ones that ended with difficult circumstances. That’s why he never had flings or even entertained his father’s attempts to arrange marriages for him. Jumin’s desire for a loving family is his Achilles heel.”

“I would never have thought he was like that,” Zen finally said at last. “But then again, it explains a surprising amount of stuff.”

“Let’s just take the possibility of doubt off the table,” Saeyoung proposed. “We still need to figure out what to do once it’s proven this kid isn’t his.”

“That depends on the information you’ve found,” Saeran noted. “We know how these things go.”

“Yeah, so, I was able to get hold of the company the guy who served him was from, and looked through all their accounts, and found a tiny bit of a start. They were recently paid by Han for some sort of service, and one of their lawyers were paid under the table a much larger amount by Han’s offshore account. Further, they’re not on retainer for Han, Ars Moriendi, or C&R. My guess is that this is Glam’s doing. The first thing I’m going to do is make some obvious hacks in all his accounts, including credit cards and business accounts, that will be immediately flagged in every system. That should stop all future transactions and give us more time.”

Collectively, the group sighed. This was getting old.

“That kid,” Saeran started talking this time. “I’ve been trying to track him down, it’s been hard but it seems like I might have found him. His real name is Yin Kim, and he’s actually seven years old. He was placed into the foster care system when he was born and was adopted last year, upon which he disappears and the paperwork for Kyun Lee appears, placing his birth date on the exact same day two years later. But it totally looks like the same kid. But that’s not what’s interesting –”

Saeyoung looked up from his computer, pausing to hear this if it’s caught even his brother’s attention. The rest of the group, quiet, willed him to continue without saying a word.

“His adoptive parents have been taking him to every production company’s auditions for the past year but he was never picked up. Singing, dancing, et cetera. However, he was recently signed a month ago – as an actor. The parents run a twitter for him, and it mentions he’s been cast in his first role: the bastard son of a big businessman.”

“This whole thing gets stranger by the minute,” Yoosung leaned down to look into Saeran’s computer.

“Hey, so um,” Zen started, his hand waving his phone. “I didn’t think anything of this before, but, now I think it was more than a coincidence.”

He posted a link in the messenger to an article so that everyone could take a look at it.

“Jumin mentioned this thing to me when he met me to check on Viv, before I bought her home? Asked me if I heard of it, but I hadn’t. He didn’t say anything other than that, so I sort of forgot about it. Viv was more important at the moment, you know?”

“A tv judge show?” Yoosung’s brow creased. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“It’s called ‘arbitration,’” Saeyoung started to explain, fingers flying over the keyboard a mile a minute. “On these television shows, both parties give permission for the judge to make a decision on their case, which makes it legally binding. Sort of similar to settling out of court. The trade off is they don’t have to pay court or lawyer fees, and they get paid a bit for coming on the show. Depending on the type of case, they still have to go back to court, like in the event of determining parentage the only thing they really do is give you the test results and you have to go back to have visitation and custody determined in a real court.”

“Do you think… they’re trying to get Jumin to agree to go on one of these tv shows?” Zen asked.

“That would be stupid,” Yoosung shook his head. “There’s no way he would agree to that.”

“They have to know he wouldn’t, there can’t be any way they would get him to go on this show.”

Jihyun had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be that easy, taking his phone out of his pocket and calling Jumin. It only took two rings before Jumin picked up.

_“How is she?”_

The room fell silent, Jihyun took a deep breath, and nodded. “She’s fine, she’s sleeping for now.”

_“Good.”_

“We have a question for you.”

_“Who?”_

“Everyone’s here with me. We’re trying to figure out what to do next.”

_“That’s not necessary, I—”_

“—hey, just… answer, alright?” Jumin didn’t continue his protest, and Jihyun presumed that was his sign to ask. “Did you get asked to take the case to a tv show?”

_“I did, and it seems despite my refusal, there is a catch.”_

“What’s that?”

_“The test results will not be released to me unless I appear on this television show.”_

Jihyun felt a rock sink to the bottom of his stomach. Their guess was right.

“I heard him,” Saeyoung said next to him. “So our next step is to find a way to get those test results and get them into the right hands. I bet the judge will be paid off to change the results of the test and say he's the father, or the results themselves have been tampered with. Tell Jumin to come home and spend a few days with his fiancée.”

 _"T_ _here’s no way I can leave Miss Kang to deal with the press—”_

“Then close the entire department, Jumin,” Jihyun’s voice became more earnest than he’d intended. “Suji needs you right now. We can deal with the rest.”

_“I cannot allow you to—”_

“Hey, you jerk! You come here right now and take care of your woman or I’ll come and drag you home myself!” Zen shouted into the phone, making Jihyun flinch with a soft, startled laugh. He might as well put the phone on speaker now.

_“Zen, thank you for—”_

“Don’t thank me, just do what we tell you to do for once.”

_“There’s no way—”_

“The two of you have always taken care of us, Jumin,” Yoosung spoke up. “Let us do something for you.”

_“This is much larger than a simple favor here or there.”_

“Paying off my contract with the Agency is more than a simple favor, Jumin,” Saeyoung scolded.

_“Viv brought her father to a concert and he’s the one who decided to snipe you from them, I didn’t have—”_

“—that’s bullshit and you know it. You’re the one who took legal action against them to let me go, not her father.”

_“Technically I’m a lawyer, I was merely doing my job –"_

“—you sent me to college on your own dime even though I only had a GED—”

_“—why would I ever waste your potential because of your circumsta—”_

“—Viv convinced me to go to therapy and you paid for it, you paid extra to keep it off the record—”

_“—Viv made Rika a promise to take care of you, of course we—”_

“—what about the personal investment you’ve made in my tattoo shop?”

 _“It was the least we could do after everything you’ve been through,”_ Jumin’s voice had quieted, as if he realized exactly the words that had just come from his mouth.

“You have a family that cares for you right here, Jumin. We only want to see you two together and happy. Finally,” Jihyun almost whispered, feeling his heart swell in his chest, full and proud. “Come home.”

Jumin sighed, and after a long moment of silence filled with shuffling papers.

_“I’m on my way.”_

“Alright,” Saeyoung closed his laptop and stood, followed by the snap of Saeran’s computer, just as Jihyun was hanging up. “Zen, Jihyun, you two stay here. Yoosung, Ray, let’s go.”

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

_{Timeless}_

_You met me before_  
_the sun met the sky._  
_You knew me before_  
_the stars learned to shine._  
_Two sparks of energy_  
_that collided in the dark_  
_to create a world_  
_of light and life and heart._

 _Every life we meet again_  
_each a little bit older_  
_next life we meet again_  
_I’ll be a little bit bolder_  
_When our lives begin again_  
_I’ll love you without fear…_

_When we meet again  
When we meet again_

_Candlelit smiles and_  
_walking for miles when_  
_home was in your eyes._  
_Brightness speaks with_  
_effervescence and a_  
_honey-sweet heart beats_  
_your essence inside of me._  
_You’re my journey and_  
_I’m your destination so_  
_let’s make a promise…_

_To tell you the truth  
I’m just happy to know you._

_Every life we meet again_  
_each a little bit older_  
_next life we meet again_  
_I’ll be a little bit bolder_  
_When our lives begin again_  
_I’ll love you without_  
_holding back, looking back,_  
_being anyone other than_  
_the star that lights your way…_

 _Every life we meet right here,_  
_I remember every ray of light_  
_that we were meant to be._

 

 

“Mornin’ jagiya.”

Zen’s sing-song greeting accompanied the brush of fingers through her hair. When she blinked open her eyes, crimson ones smiled down at her.

“You must’ve been exhausted, but you need to get up so you can eat,” Zen gently scolded. Viv sat up in bed, rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes.

“What time is it?” she croaked, her throat feeling raw and her mouth dry as cotton balls.

“About one in the afternoon.”

“ _Oh my god_.”

“Don’t worry, you have the next few days off.”

“How the fuck –”

“—is Su up yet?” she heard Jumin call from somewhere far enough that he could barely be heard.

“You might have to drag her out of bed, Zen.”

“I would prefer if you were a bit more gentle than _dragging_ her, but Jihyun has a point. She’s a heavy sleeper.”

“What’s going on?” panic rising in her throat.

Was she dreaming? There was no way the three of them were here, and they let her sleep until one, and Jumin let Zen wake her up in his bed, made as if he hadn’t slept in it the night before, and no one was fighting. How did she get home? Was she dead?

“Babe? Hey there, don’t freak out on me.”

“Where’s Jumin?”

“He’s cooking.”

_“No.”_

“I tried to convince him to let me do it, but he’s determined, something about you making him food all the time and it cheering him up, and Ji’s not allowed in the kitchen cause he barely passed home ec – did I say something wrong? If he burns down his building he’ll pay for it, you don’t have to get so worried –”

“What the hell are you saying to her?” Jumin yelled halfway across the penthouse.

“Telling her how stupid you’re being!”

Viv sighed, at least something was normal.

“I just want to know what’s going on.”

“You have to stay calm for me, alright?” Zen tilted his head down, making sure to catch her eyes with his own, a soft kiss on her forehead, light gestures of comfort across her skin. “We’ll take it a little at a time.”

“Just tell me, already!” Her fists balled into the blanket over her legs. “Why the hell are you the one who woke me up!”

Zen grinned, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “Jumin’s cooking.”

“Goddammit, Zen!”

“Seriously.”

Her head shook and she bit her bottom lip, glancing out the window over the city. A fresh layer of snow was covering the buildings despite the bright sunlight streaming through the glass and a clear blue sky.

“What day is it?”

“Thursday.”

_“I’ve been asleep a whole day?”_

“A bit longer than that, honestly.”

Viv took a deep breath. How the hell does someone sleep for more than twenty-four hours when their life was turned so upside down and inside out that it should be hard to sleep at all?

“Breathe for me, jagiya,” he soothed, pushing hair behind her ear. “Hey, princess, you have to exhale, don’t make me tickle you. Everything is ok, you were just exhausted so we let you sleep.”

She closed her eyes and blew out the breath she was holding before he called her princess again, forcing herself to breathe in and out until she was taking regular breaths.

“Is my dad ok?”

“He’s just fine, I went to see him yesterday, and Jumin talked to him this morning.”

That was just the tip of the iceburg. Viv tried to go back over the events that led up to his moment: going dress shopping, talking to her mother for the first time in months, talking to Jumin’s mother, getting accosted by paparazzi more than once and the boys doing their best to protect her, Jumin being served with a lawsuit over for neglecting a (his?) child, her father getting sick that night, a thousand phone calls in the morning, Gyun being himself and a business meeting…

A pair of hands around her cheeks grabbed her attention enough to stop her thoughts in their tracks. He brushed aside her damp bangs and lifted her face to look at him. “Suji, talk to me.”

Zen only called her by her name when he was worried about her.

Her mind swimming, she closed her eyes and tried to take a deeper breath. “I feel really dizzy.”

“Let me get you some water, wait here.”

When he let her go and stepped back, the anxiety spiked, thoughts flooding her brain without the energy to keep them back and the defenses up to protect herself, she reached out to take his hand before he could leave.

“I’m sorry, I—"

“Don’t. You’re my little sis, just like I’m your big bro. I’m right here.”

“I hate being like this, I’m supposed to be the one who helps everyone else,” she pressed her hands to her face, scrubbing at what felt like sleep-grime and a film of dried sweat. “I’m useless, completely and utterly –"

“Su, stop that,” her wrists were suddenly gripped in strong hands and she was pulled forward to a familiar chest, a pair of arms she’d known for years wrapped around her shoulders, the scent distinctly his that calmed her heartbeat and her mind. “Listen to me, alright? You’re never going to say that about yourself ever again. You got that?”

Viv nodded, unable to move much. His arms tightened further, almost crushing her to him as if he was trying to transfer something between them.

“Promise me,” said the stern voice that didn’t sound like Zen at all.

“I promise. I’m sorry, Zen, I promise.”

She felt him nod, his chest sigh, and his arms loosen a bit. He twisted his body slightly, like he was looking over his shoulder, and said, “Can you get her a glass of water?”

Viv could only twist her hands into his shirt and cry, absently noting that she had been doing so a lot more than she usually did in the past several weeks. She felt him sigh and his hands gently stroke over her back.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, “so just let it go. I’m right here. I’m with you, babe, you’re safe.”

 

 

 

 

Time traveled fast as light and slow as molasses then, the hazy memory of Jihyun kneeling in front of them and kissing her forehead and pressed his hands to her cheeks, a brief, quiet conversation with Jumin and barely an attempt to untangle her fingers from Zen’s shirt, giving up within seconds. Instead he brushed the tangles from her hair and tucked her feet into socks when they were cold to the touch. Zen didn’t let her go for even a moment while she was aware, perhaps slipping away while she was asleep.

The next time she woke up, mint hair obscured her vision. Viv lifted her head from his shoulder slowly, finding the sky starting to warm and bloom with gold. Before she knew what was happening, a glass was pressed to her lips.

“Take a drink,” came the gentle command. He didn’t really give her the option as he tilted the glass until her lips felt wet and they instantly parted to allow the liquid to fill her mouth. Jihyun had her drink half the glass before he reached across her, the hand returning to place two tablets on her tongue. “You need to drink all of it.”

Dazed, she did as she was told, drinking until he removed the glass again, and panting to catch her breath. It didn’t make sense to her that she was so out of it, and tried to make herself stop heaving for air. It didn’t exactly help.

“What’s going on?” she tried to blink but her eyes kept sticking together, her vision not as clear as it should be.

“You’re sick,” Jiji chuckled. “You’ve had a fever since Tuesday night. I hear you haven’t been sleeping much lately.”

“I’m ok,” her head shook, earning her another small bout of laughter. “How are my boys?”

“They’re fine. Yoosung, Saeran, and Saeyoung stopped by after you went back to sleep, they’re just fine.”

“Is Zen really still here?”

“He sure is. You should see the living room, it’s a mess. They’ve been arguing all day.”

“Why does it make me feel better to know they’ve been at each other’s throats?”

Jiji grinned. “It’s good to see someone be as honest with Jumin as Zen is. I’m afraid even I don’t know how to do that all the time.”

“Maybe that’s it,” she nodded, “maybe that’s exactly it.”

“I think so.” When he pushed her bangs from her eyes, she realized they were wet. “Do you think you could eat something?”

“I can try.”

This time when he got up to leave, Viv closed her eyes and almost immediately dozed back off, only to be awoken again a few minutes later by a warm towel wiping her hands, and then her face.

“Where’s Juju?” came the question she didn’t want to ask but she couldn’t help herself. Jihyun pushed a fork against her lips a moment later, and she didn’t want him to think that she didn’t appreciate them taking care of her.

“Working, unfortunately. It seems taking time off short notice isn’t something that’s possible for him,” was the soft reply. “He’s only doing what’s necessary, of course, but...”

“Like what?”

He took the opportunity of her speaking to force syrup laden pancakes past her lips.

“Nothing you need to be concerned with right now.”

“But—” she was interrupted again with a piece of banana, drumming up the need to protest. “I can feed myself!”

“If I let you do that, you’d keep talking instead of eating,” he smiled knowingly. “You want to help, don’t you?”

“Of cou—”

“Eat.”

Viv sighed and nodded, opening her mouth willingly.

“If your fever doesn’t break tonight, the doctor will be here in the morning,” Jihyun paused to cut the fluffy pancakes with the side of the fork, then the half of banana, skewering them both onto the fork to shove them to her lips. “We’re really worried about you, you know. You shouldn’t make yourself sick like this. Saeyoung said he’d noticed you’ve been skipping meals while at work.”

“I just forget,” she frowned. “There’s just so much to do.”

“You can’t get anything done if you’re sick, can you?”

Not able to say anything to that, she simply opened her mouth for the next shipment of pancake.

“You passed out in the bathroom at work…” even though his lips pulled into a small smile, it was different from the rest – but he’d always been like that. He’d laugh instead of cry, he’d smile instead of frown, never one to allow his emotions worry someone else. “We couldn’t find you for hours, Su, I’ve never seen Jumin shut down so completely before. Zen searched every room of that building, and when he finally found you and brought you home, you’d fallen into a spiral so hard to break that it took me over an hour to calm you down.”

The information of what happened to her sunk into the pit of her stomach and soured it, but she swallowed the retaliatory comments her lips were desperate to speak and just nodded instead.

“It hasn’t been this bad for a very long time,” he continued after a moment, plate on his lap, almost as if it had been forgotten. “No one is upset with you, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah…”

Soft warmth pressed against her temple, a second time at the top of her forehead, a third time over the other eyebrow. It was then that she realized the tender gesture of comfort was also a way to check her temperature. Zen had done it, too, the sensitivity of their hands diluted by years of constant wear. There was no way they could tell with a palm to her forehead… and so this sweet moment transformed into a multilayered action of care, worry, self-soothing…

“Saying you’re having a hard time is only minimizing with the sheer magnitude of the weight you’re bearing right now… I know that you’re very good at carrying that weight alone…”

A hand lifted her chin so she was forced to look into his eyes, more green than blue with the setting golden sun.

“I love you, too, Suji. Let us help.”

As she nodded, he let her go, and went back to cutting pancakes and bananas into small enough pieces of her to eat, then placed the plate on her lap.

“Eat, please. I’ll get you a glass of orange juice. I’ll be right back.”

 

 

 

 

The next time Viv awoke, she was alone and it was dark. Light pollution blotted out the stars in the sky, but the stars of people’s homes flickered all around theirs. For perhaps the first time in a couple days she had the urge to use the bathroom, and padded her way across the room to the master bath to relieve herself. She rinsed her face in the sink and gathered her hair on top of her head with a large clip she kept in a drawer that had become hers in the sink vanity.

Despite being fully clothed complete with socks and a sweatshirt, she was still cold, so she grabbed a blanket from the bed and draped it over her head to wrap around her body. The full glass of water next to the bed shouldn’t be ignored, she conceded, so she sat to chug it down before she went on the adventure to find out what was going on. Besides, she was stiff from being in bed for so long, and walking around a bit would likely help her condition. Or at least, that’s what she would say when she got scolded for being out of bed.

Water woke her up some, her awareness peaking enough that she realized the sound of voices in the other room.

“It’s sweet.”

“I am still unsure if it’s appropriate to present to her.”

“You could change the lyrics a bit to make it fit the occasion better.”

“Words are not something I am skilled with…”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“When did she write this?”

“I’m not sure, likely after the first time I told her I loved her. I mean, romantically.”

“When was this?”

“Towards the end of senior year of high school, I told Su I loved her… then I promised to marry her when circumstances became permissible. She gifted me this song sometime after, before I left for college.”

“And all this time I thought you were oblivious to the whole thing.”

“Considering Jumin’s track record I see why you’d think that, but Su can see through him clear as glass.”

“It was a painful subject for both of us, and so we avoided it when it was brought up.”

“A promise to love you in the next life… because you presumed you’d never be able to be together?”

"Even when I graduated and I'd asked my father to allow me to ask for her hand, it wasn't allowed. We had every reason to believe it wouldn't happen."

“So, we can rewrite the ending to reflect your situation now.”

“I’m not a song writer, I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Viv approaches writing lyrics with the intention of telling a story. It’s not love… I would say this song is about time. The first verse is about the past and the first time you met, which she’s stating happened lifetimes ago. The second verse is about the present and how she feels right now, and the chorus is about the future.”

“It isn’t about love? Are you sure?”

“Every song is about love, in a very vague sense of the word, even songs that don’t seem to be about it are at least motivated by it. It’s what gives us the urge to make music.”

"When did you become a song writer, Zen?"

"When I went to school for this shit. Besides, I've been working with Viv writing songs for years now."

“There is a section of the second chorus that leads to the outro. It seems that is the best place to change the song, instead of adding a verse.”

“Yeah, adding a verse would make it too long and disrupt the flow of the song.”

There was a pause in the conversation that was filled with the strumming of a guitar.

“How about this?”

“It’s… good.”

“Wow, Zen this is…”

“I learned from the best.”

“There’s just the outro.”

“I may have an… idea. It’s…”

“Just go for it. I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing, but it’s for your wedding. If you’re not going to say it to her then, when are you going to say it?”

Viv then heard something that she never thought she’d actually hear in her life: Jumin singing. She covered her mouth with her hands and sat pressed up to the door, afraid she would make a sound and disturb them. He sounded so unsure of himself when he made the suggestion, what if she made him abandon the idea entirely?

 

 _Every life we meet again_  
_each a little bit wiser_  
_If next life we meet again…_  
_it doesn’t matter today_  
_since this life we’ve met again_  
_I won’t hold back_  
_we can’t look back_  
_to who we were yesterday._  
_Let’s stop being anyone other than_  
_the stars of our own constellation_

_Every day I’ll love you  
like we’ll never meet again_

“I like it.”

“It’s good.”

“Is it… not eloquent enough?”

“No, no, it’s good, man. Works on a lot of levels with the rest of the song.”

“Should we work out harmonies?”

“Yes, that’s a good plan.”

“Keyboard?”

“Let me get it from the guest room.”

“You know, Ji, looking at the sheet music, this song was intended to be a duet. Viv’s mid is two octaves above mine, we can start building the harmonic arrangement with that.”

“If we adjust the key, it’ll fit our voices better.”

“Do you think someone should check on Viv?”

“She was fast asleep. If we wake her up now, we won’t be able to work on the song.”

“Let’s let her sleep for a bit longer. I’d like to get more food into her in, let’s say, two hours?”

“Hand me the copy, I’ll start notating.”

Notes blundering around on the keyboard, the guitar strings plucked for different chords, Jumin hummed a note and the other two found it’s match. It didn’t take long, an old muscle that only needed a bit of exercise that Zen coached them through, until a three-part harmony was built on the backbone of Jumin’s melody.

“We should do this again. I forgot how much I enjoyed it.”

Viv kept her mouth covered because she couldn’t stop the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

“Yes, I think I’d like that.”

She really was crying much more lately. But at least these were because she was happy.


	16. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Growing up is more about learning from past mistakes than it is about getting older.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {Found} was inspired loosely by Jonghyun's [MONO-Drama](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43gLsAQSDcw)

_{Found}_

_(Let me tell you a story…)_

_We met at a friend’s house_  
_we barely said hi_  
_we couldn’t look each other in the eye_  
_we didn’t even say goodbye_  
_but the way you laughed caught my attention_  
_your eyes sparkled in the moonlight_  
_I knew when you looked in my direction_  
_I was lost_

 _We became friends_  
_we thought that was enough_  
_we were awkward but it was ours_  
_we never had to say goodbye_  
_but the way you laughed bought my affection_  
_your smile brightened my dark skies_  
_I knew when you looked in my direction_  
_I was lost_

 _Don’t worry_  
_I don’t like to see you frown_  
_Don’t be sorry_  
_You’re the reason I’m around_

 _Thank you_  
_for waking up today_  
_for being my friend_  
_for letting me love you_  
_I’m happy that you’re…_

 _We saw each other already but_  
_we wave across the room anyway and_  
_when I see you later I’ll ask you what you’re doing so_  
_we won’t ever need to say goodbye_  
_but the way you laughed was my protection_  
_your hands took my worries away_  
_I knew when you looked in my direction_  
_I was –_

 _Thank you_  
_for waking up today_  
_for being my friend_  
_for letting me love you_  
_I’m happy that you’re…_

_(Hey! Thanks for finding that for me.  
I’d be lost without it.)_

_Thank you_  
_for getting out of bed today_  
_for walking beside me_  
_for letting me love you_  
_I’m happy that you’re alive._

_(Didn’t I tell you?  
Soon, you’re gonna be all right.)_

It wasn’t unusual in the least at this time of year, but his locker was a mess. Jumin sighed, exasperated, collecting the piles of chocolate and pink, red, and white envelopes into a plastic bag a teacher had given him, not bothering to look at the names. Jihyun leaned against the locker next to him, having opted to shove the contents of his locker into his backpack. He wasn’t even sure why he bothered to keep them.

“Hey, hey wait, that’s a good brand, Su would like those.”

“I don’t want to eat some other chick’s chocolate, asshole,” came the younger teenager’s terse interjection when she appeared next to them.

“Suji, don’t be mean,” Jihyun pouted. “Besides, it could be a dude’s chocolate, too.”

“Whatever, that’s not the point,” she huffed, and he could practically hear the roll of her eyes despite not being able to see her. “I’d hate if someone gave my gift away. I’d rather they give it back to me or threw it away.”

Jumin sighed, looked down at the bag that was almost overflowing, and wondered if that was something he would even have time for. He couldn’t even think of when he would have a chance to sort through all of the candy and letters in his locker let alone find every person in school who had given him something and return it.

He handed off the bag to Jihyun to hold then began to rearrange his books alphabetically. With things as they were, he’d spent the entire day just chucking things in there between classes because he didn’t have time to actually sort anything. Beside him, Jihyun whistled playfully, calling across the hall at someone, likely Rika, since Suji was standing right next to them –

“Babe, you look sweet today.”

The smile was hard to suppress when he heard Su pretend to vomit. Jumin had to admit, and at least he knew it, Jihyun’s flirting could be cringeworthy at the best of times.

Said girl’s voice, with strained kindness, grew closer until he knew she was standing next to Jihyun. “If you could not do that, it would be amazing. One day Su is actually going to throw up on your nice shoes and you’d deserve it.”

“When Rika thinks something is terrible, you know you need to stop.”

“Ok, but, doesn’t her head look like a candy cane?”

“I see it, I see it. Look, I give you a pass this time, only because the pun works.”

“I didn’t realize you two had matching hair styles until just now.”

“I like Rika’s better 'cause hers looks like a corset from the back.”

“I like yours more 'cause your ribbons go all the way down your braids!”

Jumin glanced sidelong at the pair, both girl's long hair having been parted in two braids down the sides with ribbons intertwined into the hair. Where Rika's braids stopped at the back of her ears, red ribbons curled to blend into the natural spiral of her blonde hair, Su's dark brown hair had been braided to the ends, pink ribbons of varying widths and transparency streaked to the tip. Every inch or so starting at the crown of her head was another bow, the last one sitting at the base of her neck. 

He hid the fond expression he knew he'd gotten on his face back in his locker, continuing his organization. It wouldn't do if he held them up even more. They were already waiting for him.

“Is that for the dance tonight?”

“Yeah, we have matching outfits and everything, it’s going to be so fun dressing up!”

“I’m glad you’re going to have fun getting dressed, at least. I do like the shoes, though. You two better clean up nice or we’ll dance with someone else.”

“Perish the thought! My girlfriend would never!”

“Well, I’ll at least only keep the pictures of Su and I?”

Conversation came to a halt just as Jumin finished fixing his locker setup and was closing the lock, turning the face and giving it a tug to make sure it was secure. When he turned to see who it was, there was a girl from his home room standing there, looking at her feet, her hands clutched in her skirt. Jumin looked to Jihyun, who shrugged at him, to Suji who gave him a look of sympathy, and Rika who frowned at him, stepping back to use Jihyun as a shield.

“Ming,” he tried to keep his heart from beating out of control as he casually leaned back against his locker. He wanted to avoid confrontation as much as possible. “Good afternoon.”

“Jumin, hey,” she smiled, though her eyes nervously swept over his friends, and he immediately understood she would rather they left. He hoped they stayed. “I was wondering if you got my letter.”

“I haven’t had a chance to look at it, there were –shit! _Su!_ ”

She’d kicked him in the ankle and was currently hiding his very full bag of letters and chocolates behind her back. Okay, saying he’d gotten a ton of love letters for Valentine’s day _was_ probably a bad idea, but did she need to kick him? Suji grinned, he glared back and Ming cleared her throat, drawing his attention back to her.

“Sorry, uh, maybe it would be better if you told me what was in the letter instead? You know, since you’re already here.”

“Oh, um, well,” she stammered, face back down towards her feet, knuckles white with squeezing her hands tight into fists. “I was just wondering, you know, because you’re available, if you’d, maybe, go out with me?”

He couldn’t make a sound aloud, or he’d give away how annoyed he was with the thousandth time he’d been asked out in the last three years. Instead, he sucked in a breath and mentally prepared his usual answer.

“Ming, I… you’re really pretty but… I only date girls I actually know. I’d like to be friends, though.”

Her mouth opened as if she was shocked she was rejected, but settled into an expression of remorse, then she laughed. It was one of those moments where she was laughing at herself and not someone else, then shook her head.

“I… sort of already thought we _were_ friends.”

That stung. There were only a few people he actually considered a real friend, and the majority of them didn’t go to this school. Jumin rubbed a hand through his hair and glanced away, not sure what else to say.

“If we don’t get going soon, we’ll get stuck in traffic and end up late to the dance,” he heard Suji point out.

Thankful for the way out, he nodded as Jihyun and Rika stepped around Ming to head for the door. Su carefully hid the bag she was holding as she passed the other girl, as he, feeling sort of guilty, went up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I can save you a dance later, though.”

“Sure,” she smiled, sadly, and nodded, stood there when he left.

Jumin was sure she would probably cry, though he wasn’t sure why someone could even become infatuated with someone they didn’t know. It was frustrating for him, since he refused to date any of those girls just because of how pretty they were, or how kind they were during the rare group activity in class.

Jihyun and Rika had went ahead on the way to the car, but Su was waiting for him, his bag of Valentine’s stuff in her hands. The first thing he did was take the bag from her and throw it into the nearest trash. She looked shocked for a split second, the next spent frowning, and back to normal by the end. She couldn’t be surprised, she knew exactly what was going to happen, after all.

His present for her was in his saddle bag, a small box of her favorite handmade chocolates. He had to order them months in advance to get them on time and it was well worth it – the way her eyes lit up when she saw the box and its logo was more than enough to make him forget the sour taste in his mouth from needing to deal with yet another girl who ‘liked’ him but didn’t know him.

“Oh, almost forgot,” she said and tucked something in his hand. It was a little box, and he was surprised to find it had a tag that said ‘Happy Valentine’s, Asshole,’ on it.

With a snicker, he lifted the lid to find a booklet inside.

“I know you don’t like sweets, so I got you one of those cheesy coupon books,” she said, needing to crane her neck back to look up at him.

A brief flip through the small booklet revealed a series of things he could ‘trade in’ a ‘coupon’ to her for: choose the song to perform at a C&R event, proofread a term paper longer than ten pages, a shoulder massage, homemade pancakes, a nap instead of their cello/violin duet practice, Su provides exam study time treats, secret wine night for two where Su ~~steals~~ provides the wine, a song as a gift from him to someone else, a quiet mental health day, and two tickets for cheek kisses.

He tore out the last coupon, handed it to her, and when her brows shot into her hairline, he crouched enough that he was the same height as her. One finger tapped his cheek, expectantly, exactly where he wanted his present.

Su rolled her eyes and laughed. “We’re right outside the school you know,” she complained, before pressing her lips to his cheek exactly where he’d indicated, sticky glitter lip gloss and all.

Her unoccupied hand rose in a vulgar gesture, making Jumin look down the walkway to Jihyun and Rika, who were laughing and grinning, watching the whole thing transpire. Jumin couldn’t care less about that or the shiny mark on his cheek, instead taking the offensive hand in his own and threading their fingers together to lead her down the sidewalk.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Hey, Juju.”

Jumin glanced up from his glass of wine and whatever he was reading on his phone to smile at her, then invited her over to the couch with the tilt of his head. Viv gathered the blanket up so that it was easier for her to walk and shuffled over to sit next to him. She spread the blanket so that it was over both of their laps when she sat and pushed his arm until he moved it to lay it across her shoulders.

“A penny for your thoughts, my love?”

“Do you remember when we first met the twins?”

He put his phone screen-down on the arm of the chair. It was within reach but words and lights wouldn’t distract him. She hadn’t meant it to be a serious conversation like that, but the last few days being cooped up with nothing to do had only given her the time to overthink literally everything.

“They were in such a bad situation, and we couldn’t do anything to help them.”

“We tried, but we were only children ourselves.”

“I know, but…”

A large hand brushed back her bangs and carded fingers through her hair, a soft kiss to her temple that didn’t do much to comfort her. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees, leaning heavier into his side, a sigh expelled through her lips.

“Do you ever think they resent the decisions we made?”

“Both Saeran and Saeyoung are intelligent enough to understand the situation, and that we provided everything a couple teenagers could.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know it isn’t,” the glass of wine was placed on the coffee table. “But it’s the best answer I have.”

It was a conversation they’d had before, maybe a dozen times or more. It was the only thing they knew, at the time, for two little boys whose parents had hurt and abandoned them in one way or another. While the result ended in them being successful adults, it was a battle hard fought and barely won. She always wondered what would have happened if Seven wasn’t signed to a slave contract so young, if he would have been able to pursue a line a work that he loved, that suited him better than the life he had now.

“Su?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

She smiled in spite of herself and shook her head, then sighed. He was going to be annoyed with her when she told him.

“This can’t be about the twins.”

“In a way… it is,” she shrugged. “I always wonder if we could have done something else, or what circumstances could have given them an easier life. If there was something we could have done so that Seven wasn’t in the position he is in now…”

“However...”

When she looked up his brows rose as if he was telling her to just speak what was on her mind, so she tucked her forehead to his neck, thankful he understood she needed a bit more cuddling than usual. With both of his arms around her back, her body pulled into his lap, and the blanket tightly around her shoulders, her stomach seemed to stop churning so much.

“Now that we’re adults, none of that stuff has to happen to anyone we care about again,” she practically whispered, though she hadn’t meant it to be a secret or anything. “Jumin, I want that little boy.”

“You, what?”

“You could just… say he’s yours, and we could raise him like he’s ours.”

She felt his chest fill with a deep breath, then the sigh that deflated his shoulders. “I’m not sure it’d be that simple.”

“But, presuming he is who Ray thinks he is, they’re clearly just trying to use him to generate money. His parents are allowing him to be used in a fraudulent lawsuit, that has to throw their ability to care for that child into question.”

“Presuming that’s true, it doesn’t explain why we should take responsibility for him.”

“Isn’t it our fault, in a way? He’s a victim of our selfishness. This would have never happened if we’d just done what our parents wanted and married someone else years ago. We couldn’t do more for the twins because we were kids, but we can do something for him now.”

“Look at me.”

She had to move her head out from under his chin to lean back enough to look at his face, complete with its usual frown, and watched his gray eyes skim over her face before curling his hands around her jaw and kissed her, tender and chaste.

“You can’t take care of everyone, angel, especially at the expense of yourself.”

“Not everyone, just the ones we can take care of.”

“It’s an assumption to make of the boy’s family situation…” he started, paused until she showed she was listening with a nod of her head. “He may be happy, Suji, that he’s treated well, that they love him, and it’s possible they’re being misled.”

“With the media coverage? They can’t believe it’s an acting job with the way the media is covering it.”

“The media makes outrageous claims and mistakes all the time, I would hope the vast majority of people know that and ignore it.”

“Well, yes, but…”

“Suji,” he stopped her and leaned in for a second kiss, just as sweet and gentle as the first. Her fists curled into his shirt, bade him not to move away. “Do you want to adopt a child?”

She felt her face heat and nodded. They had so much to give, and orphaned children had the world against them. If she could go back in time, she’d do anything to keep the twins safe, but they could take what they learned and give someone the life they deserve.

“Then let’s see what we can do.”

Viv found that he’d smiled, then her own spread her lips. “You mean it?”

“Yes, and if needed, we will do our best to protect the boy.”

Viv uncurled herself to wrap her arms around his neck, relief erupting from her lips in giggles. He felt like he’d relaxed, too, the arms around her loose and heavy. “Thank you.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for. I’m quite fond of the idea of a large family.”

“Should we start now?”

He clicked his tongue at her even as he laid her back on the couch. “I won’t have you proving Zen correct.”

“What about Zen?”

“Ah, nothing.”

 

 

***

 

 

“I’m sorry,” Yoosung’s head dropped to look at his palms, flexing his hands. Calluses ran the inside of his thumbs, from a decade of holding drumsticks. “It’s a bad time, but… I wanted to reenter in time for the next semester.”

“You should tell her yourself,” came Jumin’s business-like reply. It was impossible to tell whether he was upset with him, it seemed even among their friends Yoosung never picked up that ability. From the way Viv laid things out to him not too long ago, it was more that they deliberately tried to be stronger in front of him and the twins. Sometimes he wished they’d rely on him more.

“I don’t want to hurt her.”

“It would hurt her more to find out secondhand. You’re the only one she’d asked herself.”

“Really?” he almost looked up but he knew the question was more reactionary than a real question, and he knew Jumin wouldn’t answer him. “I don’t plan on reneging on the wedding thing.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Yeah, I think Zen would kill me.”

“Considering the extent of work he’s put into the performance, and the sheer amount of money it’s cost to arrange it to his tastes, I would hope for the courtesy.”

“His tastes?”

Jumin hummed as if Yoosung shouldn’t ask.

“Sometimes I forget you care about that sort of thing.”

“Most of the time I don’t, however…” Yoosung looked up when Jumin cleared his throat, watching him turn to look out the window of the top-floor restaurant. “I presume you understand the circumstances under which you will be returning to University.”

“Yeah, I… I’m not so sure what to do about the band contract, though.”

“Let me worry about that.”

“Are you sure? I mean, you have already done a lot for me and this whole school thing, I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it, so –”

“You’re not sure?”

“I, uh, am sure I want to change majors, I’d be starting over and my scholarship was only for a specific number of years that’s almost up, but I’ve saved up enough to pay for tuition and such for a couple more years, at least I think, because the band has been doing well, and –”

Jumin’s eyes slid back to him, a flat expression making Yoosung’s nervousness hike up a notch and them some.

“—It took a long time to accept that nothing I’ve done so far was because I wanted to do it. Viv asked me to reconsider what I wanted to do, and that it should be something I can tolerate doing even when I’m not feeling well. Ray suggested I try game design, and I think I’ll really like it, and I can do a ton of different stuff to figure out where my skills actually are best at—"

Yoosung paused for a split second from shock when Jumin’s tense expression softened and his lips smiled ever so slightly. Encouraged, Yoosung grinned, hands gripping the side of the table in excitement, and leaned forward a bit.

“—I’m eager to get started! I can’t wait! I want to write stories and make cool characters and create worlds for people to go on adventures in! Virtual reality is getting big and more accessible to people, and graphics are getting so good it’s hard to tell if it’s real or not, and mobile gaming is booming with phones becoming more and more powerful, and independent game designers are making stuff that’s just as good if not more innovative than big companies!”

It seemed like Jumin was watching him closely, just listening to him going on and on. Yoosung didn’t exactly understand why, he must be acting strange, maybe he was talking too much?

With a sharp inhale, Yoosung tried to catch himself, pushed back into his chair, and sheepishly looked at his lap. “Sorry, I got carried away.”

“No, don’t apologize.”

That’s right, Jumin hated apologies. Yoosung internally cringed. When he looked up, Jumin’s smile had widened.

“What?”

An elbow on the table braced the arm with a hand that Jumin’s chin dropped into, fingers half-hiding that pleasant expression still on his lips. Yoosung almost preferred when he wasn’t smiling, but he couldn’t say that because that would be mean.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he snapped at last.

Jumin chuckled.

Yoosung opened his mouth to try to fuss again, but couldn’t. There was something about it, or rather, something it wasn’t: derisive, condescending, judgmental. It was almost as if Jumin was enjoying watching him get excited over something he liked. Yoosung wondered when the last time someone was happy to hear him prattle on about something stupid that made him happy. Well, besides Ray, of course.

“You can continue,” Jumin told him, and sat watching him expectantly.

Was it possible that he was right?

“I don’t want to bore you.”

Jumin shrugged. “Listening to you talk about something that makes you happy is in no way boring to me.”

It was stated so matter-of-factly that Yoosung instantly squeaked, “Really?”

And perhaps Jumin was feeling a bit gracious after all because he answered, “Yes, really.”

Still, Yoosung couldn’t stop the anxiety that filled his throat at the thought of annoying Jumin more than he already had. He shouldn’t be intimidating by now, he shouldn’t even be making him nervous by now, but Jumin was always so tense that Yoosung was anticipating the moment when he’d do something wrong and mess the entire thing up.

“I didn’t think I had the choice,” Jumin stated after a moment of waiting for Yoosung to speak, never taking his eyes away. His gaze, despite being dark gray, was warm somehow. “I would be a fool to say I am not fortunate with my lot in life, however I… would have done many things differently had I realized my freedom to do so.”

He sighed, then, a hand reaching for the coffee cup he had neglected and taking a sip.

“When we are desperate to cure our loneliness, we can convince ourselves that love is something that it isn’t.”

When Jumin lifted his eyes back to look at him, it felt as if the man was looking into the inner depths of his soul, reading every thought. Yoosung had to force himself to take a breath.

“Someone who truly loves you will want your happiness and not an ounce more, regardless of the benefit to themselves. Remember that.”

“Yeah, okay...”

“I’d like to hear more of what you have to say.”

He was right, of course. All this time Yoosung had forgotten that all of his friends had given up parts of themselves to be who they were today. For better or for worse, each of them ended up where they were because of a path that hadn’t been paved by them, even those of them who had started laying their own bricks years ago, the starting line was drawn by someone else. That was just a fact of life, the nature of being born.

For a moment he felt selfish, self-centered, the flash of an urge to berate himself for not realizing it earlier. Then he focused his vision on Jumin again, reminded himself that the man in front of him wouldn’t be the same person if not for that path, and asked himself if he would want him to be any different than who he was now.

It was an easy answer: No.

Instead, Yoosung grinned and watched Jumin’s slight smile return along the lip of the coffee cup he was drinking from.

“Well, I have this idea for a mobile game where there are seven friends, and they’re all part of a larger story that you have to play through in order to slowly unravel the whole picture. I want to incorporate things that differentiate the phone as a medium from other devices by using stuff like texting and phone calls to let you get to know the characters better!”

“Interesting.”

“As the story unfolds, you find out there was this crazy plot to absorb the members of this group of friends into a cult, and you have to figure out how to keep them safe…”

 

***

 

“I am not sure what you expected, Father,” Jumin said in a voice that was entirely scolding but flat enough that not many would be able to tell.

Chairman Han was carefully flipping the pages of a large stack of paper, lines having been highlighted by the accountant sitting next to him. The lawyer sitting next to Jumin was typing quickly on his computer.

“I certainly didn’t expect for Glam to go on a string of TV interviews specifically about how horrible of a partner I am,” he sighed. “You knew about this the entire time, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

Jumin simply sat there watching his father while he unraveled.

“Of course you did, I’m sure you attempted to speak to me. Is this the sort of man I’ve become? I am sure you are ashamed of your father, Jumin, I can see now why the investors are so adamant about my slowing down.”

There was nothing to say, especially in light of the current situation with Glam and Sarah. He was only sitting here at the moment because much of the money Glam had used from his father’s accounts were attempts to break up his marriage.

“Is there not more evidence than this when it comes to where all this money went?”

The stack of paper in front of Jumin was pushed across the table to his father, who looked up and rose an eyebrow as if to ask where he’d gotten the information from but decided not to. Technically, hacking was a crime, and any evidence obtained illegally would need to be thrown out in a court case. It would take months, maybe years, to gather this information legally.

“Most of it seems to be to tabloids… police, press, lawyers, a judge… is this… to the judge of a television program?”

“Yes, it seems so.”

“What for?”

“The case for proving parentage of that child, the test results are being withheld until I agree to participate in a television show.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Yes, quite.”

A hand smoothed down Han’s face, then he looked through the bank statements a second time. Jumin was starting to feel impatient, but he sat quietly and remained calm despite that fact. His father needed to look at the numbers himself, and since it was the first time he was looking at them, Jumin knew it would take some time to process.

“Why would she do something like this?”

“Money, Father, why else?”

“I understand that,” he snapped, a hand slapping the paper in front of him. “Why _you_? I would understand trying to take me for all I’m worth, but you have nothing to do with it. Why try to ruin your reputation, your relationship? Why my _child_?”

“Money,” Jumin shrugged. “I suspect Sarah is more than her student, perhaps family of some sort. It makes sense, does it not? If you want to steal the entirety of a family’s fortune, manipulate both the parent and the child into handing over their portions. There is a large percentage of your estate that has been set aside for myself and my future family.”

Han sighed, then passed a hand over the bald spot on his head. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

“What was?”

“Jumin,” the saddest expression he’d ever seen on his father’s face turned up to him. “I’ve never met a woman I respected and loved as much as your mother… I am a selfish man that asked her to throw away everything that made her who she was in order to be with me. When she refused, I sought what I wanted elsewhere, and she rightfully left me. I have been trying to fill her place ever since.”

His father never spoke about what happened between himself and his mother, why she left or what circumstances surrounded why Jumin remained with his father instead of his mother.

“Perhaps more than that, she was there before we had all this. She was the backbone of our family every sleepless night we had working our asses off getting this business off the ground. I must be an ungrateful sonuva bitch to leave the woman who stayed with me when we had nothing to our name the moment I’m making enough to force her to stay home.”

With a sigh, Han let his lips spread into a self-depreciating smile and said, “I’m sorry, son.”

Jumin’s brows rose into his hairline, out of surprise and with a thousand questions. “For?”

“The first time you said you’d marry Sujin was when you were eight years old,” he chuckled, nostalgia was what had released the self-flagellation from his lips and allowed him a genuine smile. “Jihyun told you Sujin would never like you enough to marry you and you pushed him down and made him cry in a fit of anger. Sujin hadn’t turned six yet, and was just berating you. You were blowing up the bodyguard’s phones telling them to remove Jihyun from the house, I remember hearing you trying to speak calmly while Sujin was screaming ‘that was a bad thing you did!’ over and over. We men had no idea what to do, and so Kim and Park just took them home and you were angry with me for the rest of the week.”

It was impossible not to smile with his father at the little memory, the antics of young children, no matter how irrelevant of a story it was.

“You asked once when Sujin graduated from high school, and I no doubt took that as a boy’s infatuation. You were as serious as a heart attack when you returned from college and asked me again. I could see how much I hurt you when I rejected the idea, and to be honest, Jumin, you’ve never been the same. You were always a quiet, studious, insular boy, but it was as if I lost sight of who you were completely that day, and I’m not sure if you showed me that person again. I destroyed your trust in me, I know now, but at the time I…”

His father looked away to a random corner of the room, and Jumin used the opportunity to let down his guard for just a second so that he may gather himself up and steel himself for the rest of what his father had to say.

“I had plans, you see, ambitious plans that were short sighted and didn’t consider just how difficult things it is to find a lover. I have always understood the value of your marriage as an asset for the progress of the company, I wouldn’t allow you to marry someone who was not an asset to _me_ , and that is a terrible way to use a child. We don’t live in times where that’s necessary.”

“I didn’t think you remembered.”

“I presumed that infatuation was done with when you didn't bring it up again. Since then, you’ve never cooperated with me on finding you a woman I’d like, I’d given up, and then I remembered how much you loved that girl and thought I would try letting you have what you’d always wanted. I hoped that, at least, you still felt even a small amount of what you did for her six years ago.”

He sighed. Jumin hid the drop in his countenance by looking at his hands.

“I’ve never seen you so happy. I knew I’d finally made the right decision. And then I did this, got us here, and I have never regretted a choice so much in my life. I thought I found someone like your mother, but Glam is a pale shadow in comparison, certainly not worth selling your future in order to keep. It seems I am being punished for the way I’ve treated you and the women I’ve had like trophies to display. I might be getting what I deserved all along.”

With the shake of his head Han tapped the papers in front of him.

“Perhaps it is time for me to put these things aside and focus on my family. This is what has brought us here, son, I cannot keep ignoring the forest for the trees, or so they say.”

“It would be an improvement,” Jumin nodded, with a bit of encouragement. “I’m not sure what I can do to help this situation…”

“Not one thing, you’ve already done enough. Besides, you have a lot on your plate because of me.”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle, Father.”

“I know, Jumin… I know,” he sighed, taking his glasses off and setting them aside so that he could look at Jumin without squinting.

For the first time in years Jumin met his father’s eyes and saw that they were clear.

 

***

 

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Han’s office is right this way. But first, would you like coffee? Tea?”

Jaehee stood from her place at her desk, waved a hand behind her at her personal coffee maker.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” said the nervous-looking woman, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and nudging her husband with an elbow. “Right honey?”

“Yes, yes, but thank you,” he nodded emphatically.

“Then could you follow me? Mr. Han is expecting you.”

Both of them nodded again, then bumbled down the hall behind her like every other person who had never been in a situation where they were speaking to someone of a ‘higher class’. Jaehee was used to dealing with people like this, but she wasn’t in the mood to try to coddle them through the process. Thankfully they left the little boy at home, or wherever he was supposed to be.

A brief knock on the door was answered with ‘come in’ instead of her customary announcement of the guest. Today, everyone knew who was here and why.

She opened the door for them and let them in, stepped inside herself, then closed and locked the door at her back. Viv was standing behind Mr. Han’s chair, folded arms unfurling as she stood straighter, having been resting on it. Saeyoung and Saeran were standing at the sides of the desk with opposing expressions – Saeyoung’s smile a direct contrast to Saeran’s frown. Mr. Han stood from his chair to extend a hand to the couple, the man shaking his one hand with both of his own and the wife bowing politely without shaking his hand at all.

“Please, take a seat,” he swept his hand to the empty armchairs before his desk and sat himself. “I am sure Assistant Kang has offered refreshments.”

“Oh, yes, she did, thank you,” the wife pressed her hands over her skirt, trying to remove the wrinkles. “She’s very kind.”

“I’m pleased to hear so,” came Mr. Han’s pleasant reply, but Jaehee could tell it was a fake one. His eyes were hard, observing the couple very intently. “I don’t have much time, therefore, I’d like to get straight to business. Do you know why I’ve called you here?”

“To be honest, Mr. Han, not at all,” says the husband.

Jaehee hadn’t told them anything over the phone, only that they were being summoned by Jumin Han, so that should be the truth of it. When Mr. Han looked up at her, she nodded once to confirm this fact, then his attention returned to the couple.

“I have some questions about your Kyun, Mr. and Mrs. Lee,” he stated, though rather nonchalantly, opening a thin manila folder on his desk to the first page and scanning it as if he was checking himself.

“Of course,” the husband straightened in his chair. “Anything you’d like to know.”

“It seems he has been hired for playing a new role in a television show. Could you tell me about that?”

“Yes, ah, his role is ‘Pau Kim’ the illegitimate son of a big name lawyer and businessman. The mother is attempting to take him to court for neglect and child support, and making the issue public is in the name of justice for this little boy. The story is something like they met in the United States while he was in University and fell in love, but they weren’t allowed to marry because of her low station. In the script, he is to meet his son for the first time, and he finds him so precious that he agrees to the whole thing without preamble. It’s a tragic story, isn’t it? To be torn from the one you love because of money…” Mrs. Lee smiles sadly.

“Ah, tragic, indeed,” he mused indifferently, rustling through the papers. “Would you be able to tell me who the other actors are?”

“They’re still in the middle of casting,” Mr. Lee nods, “but we know the mother is Sarah Choi, she’s been visiting Kyun every few days for several weeks now to go over lines.”

Jaehee sighed. Viv hummed, shifting on her feet as if she was uncomfortable.

“I would like the information for the casting director, the producer, and all other staff you’re in touch with.”

Mr. and Mrs. Lee looked at each other bewildered. Either they were both naïve or they were good at acting themselves.

“His history said he was signed to an agency, they probably don’t have contact with the producer,” Viv pointed out above his head. “Their point of contact would be the agent or scouting manager at best, or the manager for his group at worse. But I can speak to their Head of Production if I know which company it is.”

With a nod, he turned his attention back to the couple. “He was signed with an agency, then? Can you tell me which one?”

“It’s called Lumin, our point of contact is Glam Choi, I can give you her phone number if you need it.”

Saeran rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head while Saeyoung attempted to hide his laughter, circling behind the chairs to pause at the door and whisper, “You think they have no idea?”

“I don’t know, should I call the police?”

“Let’s not do anything too hasty,” he grinned. “Give me a minute and I’ll have something for you.”

Jaehee moved out of the way to let him out the door and he went to her office instead, where his computers were set up. She closed the door behind him and turned her attention back to the conversation as she slipped her phone from inside her jacket pocket. They couldn’t be too prepared in case the couple wanted to run.

“Let me tell you a bit about my circumstances and why I’ve called you here,” Mr. Han began, threading his fingers together and leaning into his desk, not dropping the friendly air about him. “About a week ago, I was served with a lawsuit demanding compensation for the neglect and unpaid child support for a five year old boy named ‘Kyun Lee’. Parentage must of course be proven with a DNA test, which were withheld from me with the supposition that I participate in a court-arbitration television program.”

Mrs. Lee looked pale, while Mr. Lee was clearly attempting to keep his composure. “That is an odd predicament, Mr. Han.”

“Yes, which is why I had someone look into your son, this program, et cetera.” His hand turned the folder around on the table to show them a picture and an information sheet. “Is this Kyun?”

“Well, yes, that’s him,” the mother nodded. “Yin Kim… yes we renamed him when we adopted him, and his age filed a couple years younger. We thought it would be better for him to separate from his past as much as possible, he wasn’t treated well at the orphanage and he’s small for his age from being malnourished…” she looked up, her face flushing as if she realized she was going on too much. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Are you his biological father?”

“No, I am not,” he pushed forward another paper, the printing of an email from the lab that performed the DNA analysis. “It was under rather unorthodox methods but I was able to contact the proper person to obtain the real results. This is where such a discussion would end, normally, however, my sweet fiancée has been worried over the welfare of this child who is being used to extort money from me.”

“We had no idea!” she shrieked, then her voice dropped, her brows pitched, and she looked at her husband as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Right, dear? We… we know nothing about this…?”

He was looking as if he was about to retch, then dropped his face into his hands and started to sob. “I’m so sorry, Jin Ah, I’m so, so sorry.”

Jaehee sighed and felt her lips curl in the attempt to keep her countenance neutral, then took the handkerchief from her breast pocket, circled the chair until she was able to kneel next to the middle-aged man to place a hand on his shoulder. When he looked up his face was red and his nose dripping snot with his eyes dripping tears into his hands. Jaehee tucked the cloth into his fingers with a soft smile and whispered, “keep it.”

Grateful, he nodded and began to wipe his face off, trying his best to sober up. It was then that Jaehee wandered back to the door, messaged Saeyoung that he didn’t need to dig any deeper, they had what they needed, left to get the man some tea.

When she returned, Viv was sitting on Mr. Han’s lap with his arm holding her firmly to his chest and Saeran was sitting on the desk while Mr. Lee bumbled his way through his story, his wife looking at her hands and biting her lip as if she was about to cry herself.

“I lost my job six months ago,” he told them, shamefully, a small bow of thanks when Jaehee handed him the hot cup of tea. “Our boy loves his dance classes so, I couldn’t think of taking him out of them. He wants to be like those BTS boys, you know? He knows every song and every dance, I can’t take his dream from him. No one wants to hire an old man like me, you see, especially after you’ve been fired twice. We were approached by a beautiful young woman about a month ago, told us she was with a talent agency, and she would help us get Kyun signed to a label.”

His head shook as he continued. “I should have known it was too good to be true. We signed the contract without having a lawyer look over it, and I’m no good at those complicated documents, I tried to read it but I didn’t understand what I was reading but I figured that’s what we had to do so that he could do what he wanted. It was the chance of a lifetime, I know he’s too young to understand what he’s getting into, but he’s an orphan, this might be the only shot he gets to be something more than what we can give him.”

“May I ask why you lost your job?” Mr. Han asked, voice quiet, almost sympathetic.

“I, ah, had prostate cancer younger than most people. Because of it we… can’t have children. I’m fine now!” Mr. Lee rubbed at his face with the handkerchief again. “I just get a bit sick more often than most people. My medical history isn’t so great, so it’s hard to find places to hire me.”

Viv had covered her mouth with her hands, a terribly torn look in her eyes as she turned back to Mr. Han and he looked up at her, brushed her hair behind her ear. Saeran sighed, looking pretty upset himself, though his ‘upset’ face wasn’t much more than his usual frown, it seemed more profound somehow. Saeyoung gently pushed open the door and closed it behind him, standing next to her and lounging against the wall, his expression just as dejected.

“She said she had this role for him, he’d pretend to be this millionaire’s son, and when she got the money she’d give us a percentage. She never told us everything, but I saw the way the Miss was accosted on the news, and I just knew it, I knew she was using our boy and it was my fault… I called her up and she said she’s sue us if we said anything, and thinkin’ we didn’t have the money for court fees or a lawyer, there was nothing I could do but hope that her scheme didn’t come to anything.”

“Honey, why didn’t you tell me?” the wife reached to him and he took her hand, kissed her knuckles reverentially.

“I know how hard you’re workin’ and how much I worry you, I didn’t want to add more to your burden.”

Mr. Han’s arm around Viv’s back held her as they seemed to have a quiet conversation, she had turned into him and hid her face in his neck. His smile seemed absent as he looked at her, then shook his head and took a deep breath.

“Mr. Lee, Mrs. Lee, I need your help,” Mr. Han said slowly, making eye contact with the husband. “Glam Choi has been taking advantage of my father’s infatuation with her, including demanding that I marry her student, Sarah Choi. When I refused as I was already betrothed, a campaign of ruining our reputations ensued. It has culminated in attempting to prove Kyun is my son, likely so that she is able to force me to pay child support and pocket the money. With your testimony, I should be able to prove their attempt at extortion and end this charade once and for all.”

“That’s awful! We’ll help any way we can!” Mrs. Lee immediately sat straighter. “Someone must have an evil spirit to use a child to get money out of someone else, no matter how much money they have.”

“Of course, I will make sure you will come to no harm during the proceedings, physically or financially,” Mr. Han paused, eyes turning to look at Viv as she was saying something to him, to which he nodded. “In return, I can at the very least provide Mr. Lee reliable employment with the compensation you need to comfortably care for your family. As for little Kyun, I’m sure my fiancée has resources that can accommodate his skills, without needing to sign a contract before he’s old enough to decide for himself.”

Viv was the one who pulled back, hands on his shoulders, a grin on her lips to squeak, “Promise?”

“As long as everything checks out exactly as they’ve told us, I will personally make sure Mr. Lee and his family never suffers for his illness again.”

The couple looked at each other in surprise as Viv threw her arms back around his neck and Mr. Han couldn’t hold back a sheepish smile in response to her giggling happiness, trying to hold on to the edge of the desk to prevent the chair from falling over. Then she kissed him, and as chaste as it was, her boldness must have had its effect as Mr. Han’s ears blushed deep red.

“Thank you so much,” she said, as she hugged him tight.

“You’re not the one who should be thanking me,” he chuckled. It was refreshing to see Mr. Han’s embarrassed face, one he tried to hide by turning away.

“Remember you promised, alright?”

“So far my track record is spotless.”

“True. I need to hurry and go see Dad.”

“Yes, tell me how he’s doing later.”

Viv bounded around the desk and hugged both Mr. and Mrs. Lee, who were still as shocked as they had been the entire time to receive her affection, grabbed Saeran’s hands and pulled him with her despite his groans of protest.

“You don’t need him, do you?”

“I don’t. Saeyoung?”

“Not me,” Saeyoung shrugged. “I suppose he can go back to doing whatever.”

“We’ll see you later!” she grinned and dragged him out the door with her, but not without hugging herself and Saeyoung on the way out.

Mr. Han seemed drawn by her trail of warmth as she practically ran down the hallway, then sat at the edge of his desk with a bit of the shake of his head. “She’d made me promise to take care of him if need be.”

“Him?” Saeyoung’s head tilted in question.

“The child. She even suggested I testify he is my son if he was in a poor situation.”

Jaehee wasn’t exactly sure what Saeyoung meant when he laughed, “I’m not surprised at all.”

His attention turned to the stunned parents sitting in front of him. “I am not sure if you know, but her father is Daesuk Park.”

Mr. Lee’s face lit up with recognition, and then instantly fell. “How is he?”

“Stable for now, but we fear he doesn’t have much time left.”

“Dear?” Mrs. Lee, who clearly did not know what they were speaking of, looked around the room for someone to explain. Her husband took her hand and smiled, weakly, as if he was trying to protect her from the sting such news would have.

“He was a singer back when we were in high school, ended up being diagnosed with lung cancer a while ago. Last I heard he was in remission.”

“Yes, that’s right, but he recently had a heart attack and is under twenty-four hour care,” Mr. Han informed them rather gently. “I am sure you understand why your story has struck her. She has a heart as deep as an ocean, and I consider myself blessed to have earned her affection. Please feel assured that I will act in your best interests, for her sake if no one else’s.”

Mrs. Lee stood and before Mr. Han could get out of the way, hugged him. He stood there, frozen, as the woman crumpled into his chest and cried her thanks. He glanced around the room for help, landing on Jaehee last of all, as if she had the answers for him.

In a way she did, she supposed, and crossed her arms over her chest in the motion of a hug with a nod of encouragement.

He’d waited so long that she’d started to mumble apologies and attempted to draw herself away before Mr. Han folded his arms over her shoulders and held her a bit closer, a motion to tell her it was alright to be there.

Jaehee couldn’t help but smile then, her chest swelling with pride. This was her boss, and in this moment she wouldn’t trade his tyrannical reign for all the vacation days in the world if she was able to witness a family get the help they needed. When he leaned down further to rub a hand across her back to comfort her, Jaehee bowed slightly and turned out the door to notify his next appointment that he would be late.

 

***

 

_“He’s exactly the sort of person you’d think he would be,” Glam complained, a frown drawing her lips down in an exaggerated manner for the cameras. “Irresponsible, self-absorbed, and horribly egotistic.”_

_“I don’t know how you could possibly stand to be with a man like that,” laughed the interviewer._

_“I am not sure myself, I think I deluded myself into believing he was someone he wasn’t. It is something everyone does when they’re in love, do they not? Especially new love, one ignores someone’s faults for all the good they are.”_

_“I understand, of course, I’m sure every woman could. I’m sure the money didn’t hurt.”_

_“In hindsight, it was the only good thing about him, but of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty.”_

_“Such a harsh assessment!” the interview gasped. “To say that on national television…!”_

_“Chairman Han asked me to marry him, and during our engagement party his son introduced him to another woman whom he began to ogle immediately. Within the week he was sleeping with her, and two weeks later I rarely spoke to him.”_

_“At your engagement party?”_

_“It is true, completely true. I’ve never fell out of love so fast in my life. He’s a scoundrel and a cheat.”_

_“Were you not the ‘other woman’ yourself?”_

_“Yes, you’re right. I deluded myself and believed him when he said he’d finally divorce her for me. I should have known, if he was seeing me while he was married, what made me think he would change for me? It’s a mistake I will never need to make again.”_

_“I feel so bad for you, Glam! What do you plan on doing next?”_

_“What is there for me to do? You can’t sue someone for cheating. I was an accomplice in the situation, still, I can make sure other women are informed to steer clear of men like him.”_

_“That’s so gracious of you—”_

Viv closed the video on her phone and sighed, then leaned against the wall in the hallway in front of the door she was scheduled to enter in fifteen minutes. She was much earlier than she needed to be, but once she went inside the room she would have to deal with people, and she wasn’t exactly in the mood to deal with people.

If only she could disappear like a chameleon or something. Camouflage into the wall so that no one sees her and then walk the fuck out. It was the first day she was back, officially, after she’d gotten sick enough to be relegated to the bed for several days. Zen and Jihyun had left after her fever broke, she had a feeling Jumin kicked them out, honestly, and hogged her weekend to himself. Not that she minded, but a week of doing absolutely nothing had left her restless. Sure, she’d written several songs in that time, but she didn’t have the band to try them out. She could have at least gotten some paperwork done. Jumin had vetoed the idea and wouldn’t let her so much as touch her guitar for the entire time she was out.

It was sweet, but she was going to kill that man one day.

Thankfully the doctor had given her permission to return to work, despite his protests, the day before. She wasn’t completely back to her full capacity, which was to be expected she supposed, and was taking it easy for the time being. There wasn’t much to be done about wedding stuff since after the initial ‘picking shit out’ stage, Jaehee pretty much put a block on communication about wedding things. Zen had followed suit, as he was following her lead, and Jumin would just shrug at her if she asked him anything. As irritating as it was, she was grateful. How could she not be? Their lives were spiraling out of control and their friends taking things over was more than they could ask for.

Instead, she took a crumpled piece of paper out of her purse and began to hum the tune that accompanied the lyrics Zen had written down for her. He was better at writing that he gave himself credit for, surely, but it wasn’t something he was interested in pursing at the moment. That was ok, after all, on their off seasons Zen was preparing for the theatre. She wondered if she could find the time to join an orchestra somewhere to play in the pit of local performances. That would be fun to relax. Or an acapella group. Maybe he’d join with her.

The paper was plucked unceremoniously out of her hand as a shadow blocked the light overhead. Viv looked up to say something, but the words died in her throat, and she sighed.

“Oh, it’s you. I need that back.”

“You should be thanking me,” Gyun’s brows rose at her, then tucked the paper into his pocket. That was ok, she’d read it so many times she’d probably memorized it by now. “I got you out of a pretty difficult predicament.”

“Thank you,” she groused, schooling her best not-quite-neutral expression. “You are perfectly able to speak to me from a few steps back.”

“I would rather remain where I am, young lady,” he sneered.

Viv wondered what was going on with him, since she’d never seen him lose his temper this quickly, let alone be this aggressive in a public place. She couldn’t hold back the thought of _‘that escalated quickly…’._ Instead of tell him again, she stepped to the side and away from where he was looming over her.

He grabbed her arm and squeezed, pulling her in enough for him attempt to whisper in her ear. She could smell the alcohol on him, breath hot and his ‘whisper’ nowhere near a normal volume. It was barely nine in the morning. What was going in with him?

“I didn’t give you permission to leave.”

“Let go of me, Mr. Gyun,” she calmly told him, trying not to flinch when his hand gripped tighter. “Are you alright?”

She wasn’t concerned for him as much as she was concerned about what he was going to do if he got more upset.

“No! No, I’m not!” he growled, shaking her once. “Tell me, what does that brat have that you like so much over me! Why do you avoid me like the plague? I have much more to offer than that uptight little prick!”

“You’re hurting me,” calmly, not allowing herself to show fear, instead looking around for a method of escape. “Let go of me, and we can talk like civil adults.”

“If I let you go, you’ll run away!” he yelled. “I need to know! Tell me why you reject me!”

“Mr. Gyun, you know as well as I do that our parents chose this marriage for us—”

“—that boy has been betrothed two dozen times, what makes you so special?”

“Company assets, parental friendship, I’d imagine it has to do with the loyalty to my dying father. It would look bad on Han’s reputation to dissolve a marriage with a dying man, wouldn’t it? He’s already got enough to deal with, didn’t you see the news?”

“You don’t love that boy?” he asked, visibly sinking, the volume of his voice quieting as his shoulders lowered from their raised position with his bristling. “I know you’re in love with him.”

“Mr. Gyun,” she slipped into the familiar role of an executive’s daughter almost naturally these days, especially when in situations like this with businessmen and their bruised egos. Soothing an outburst of this nature barely phased her anymore. “Even if I did, would it matter? I’m marrying him because of a contract our parents conceived, you know that.”

“I could… I could get you out of it. I could offer any amount of money your father wanted! I could buy you anything you need! You’d never have to work, you’d—"

“You know that’s not how it works… besides, Mr. Gyun, you’re already married.”

The other hand rose to grasp her other arm, and Viv glanced around to see several people starting to gather around. It was bound to happen, they were right in front of a conference room. Someone had taken out their phone, hopefully to call security. Of course it would be great if someone said something to him, but it was clear he wasn’t in his mind right now and could make things worse. The last thing she wanted was someone else getting hurt. As long as he didn’t devolve more, she’d be able to stall until the proper authorities got here.

“She hates me. Sujin, she hates me! I pay for a house for her to live in so she doesn’t need to see my face! I pay for her and our children to live comfortably while she tells me how much of a disgusting failure I am! She has to be right! No woman has stayed with me. You’re the only one who has seen my terrible personality and tolerates it!”

She braced for the moment he shook her again, as she felt his hand tighten painfully on her arms. “Mr. Gyun, you’re hurting me,” she repeated quietly, but didn’t dare to struggle lest he become angry again.

Thankfully, it seemed to work that time, and he sighed, shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sujin, I’m sorry,” then let go of her arms to gently yet clumsily rub them.

It was hard to not feel sorry for him, despite the fact that he’d created the situation that he was in and needed to lie in the bed he made. Even the best people make mistakes. Some of those mistakes are so profound that there is no forgiveness, there’s no making up the difference. The only thing to do in that case is to learn from the mistake, to never do it again, and to forgive one’s self for your ignorance. There was no way to make him understand that now, not when he was drunk out of his mind like this. He needed help, and she couldn’t be the one to help him.

Suddenly, viscerally, she was engulfed in guilt. For her own well-being she had to say ‘no’ to helping someone. Had she done that before?

Finally, several security officers made their way into the crowd that had formed around them, and put his hands into cuffs while reading him his rights. He struggled at first, but eventually relented, bowed his head to her apologetically. Perhaps adrenaline was wearing off and the alcohol was loosening its hold on his senses that he’d realized what he’d done.

“Wait,” she started, wanting to say something, do something, to comfort him. She shouldn’t feel bad just because they'd lashed out needing help, she reminded herself. The police paused in turning him away to look at her questioningly, wondering what she had to say. Her mouth opened and she reached for Gyun…

_He has to take responsibility for himself._

Viv stopped herself, drew back the hand that she was going to touch him with, and grasped it with the other to hold to her chest. Instead, she looked to the officer and said, “He’s taken something from me. A small sheet of paper in his left pocket? It’s some song lyrics I’m working on and I need them back. I’m… I’m a songwriter, it’s important.”

Gyun nodded once and was turned by the officer to take the paper from his pocket and hand it back to her. Viv unraveled the paper to make sure it was what she needed, took a deep breath, and nodded, forced herself to let go of the urge to do something. He was hurting, but it wasn’t her job to fix him.

In fact, it wasn't her job to fix anyone.

Vivere strode into the conference room without looking back.

 

***

 

Glam and Sarah Choi, their lawyer, and a few other people sat across the table from his father and himself, between them their own lawyer and accountant. Jumin had a whole stack of various folders in front of him, he had come prepared with everything from bank statements to copies of the tabloids that were used to throw his relationship with his fiancée into question. Under the advice from the lawyers, no one had spoken to each other yet.

At the end of the day, this whole thing was about him. His father’s relationship with the woman was over and done with, and while he could sue her for defamation of character, at the moment he wasn’t really interested. He still felt ashamed about the fact that he had allowed his own money to be used in creating this situation in the first place.

“We only want for you to drop the fraudulent lawsuit claiming Kyun Lee is Jumin Han’s son, and make a public statement as to it’s false nature,” his lawyer, Mr. Ynez said, for maybe the fifth time.

“There is no way we can agree to that when there is no proof that he isn’t the father of that child,” the other lawyer, Mr. Wong asserted.

“Let me put it this way, you’re not going to win this case,” Ynez sighed. “Under the code of ethics, you shouldn’t misconstrue the validity of a case to your clients. It’s your duty as a lawyer to make sure they do not put themselves in a position where they cannot win or remove yourself from the case entirely.”

“Are you trying to imply that my client is lying, Mr. Ynez?”

“I’m not implying, I making the statement they are lying and you know they are. In order to prevent further lawsuits against them, I would advise them to drop this charade and move on with their lives.”

“And what kind of further lawsuits would that be?”

“Using the police to one’s own advantage, placing a fraudulent police report, several counts of child endangerment, several counts of extortion, fraudulently claiming a child for the purpose of extortion, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars, instigating a riot, stalking, several counts of defamation, I can keep going if you’d like.”

“All that is hearsay.”

“Really?”

Wong paused, seemed to think again on what was going on.

“We all know Jumin is the father of that child, I don’t understand what the issue is,” Glam interjected. “This shouldn’t even be the topic of discussion, we should be negotiating the amount of money he will be paying to Sarah per month to take care of him.”

“Ms. Choi, please, let me handle this,” Wong glanced at her with a frown.

“I’m tired of you telling me what to do,” she sneered. “You’re not getting anywhere with this man. What did I hire you for, anyway?”

“Ma’am if you would simply allow me to do my job, trust me we will get to the bottom of this matter,” he attempted to get her to back out of the conversation, but that wasn’t something Glam would ever do.

Jumin looked at Sarah, who had been sitting there quietly the entire time. Just like almost every other time he’d been in the same room as the both of them, Glam took the reigns and kept them. She seemed as if she thought she was bound to this fate and didn’t have a choice in the matter either way. The only time he’d spoken to Sarah was when she visited his office and told him about Glam’s involvement with the first tabloid. He wondered if she had attempted to do something about her situation when she had visited him then, but was stuck in a place where she couldn’t get out.

Ynez didn’t want to spread out all their evidence at once in case they needed to go to trial, since refuting the claims would be his job and he needed every advantage he could get. Jumin hoped that his father would get himself together so that his mistakes wouldn’t continue to reflect poorly on him in the future. It wouldn't be long until Jumin had children to think about. It might even be difficult to enroll them into a good school with the sort of reputation his father had cultivated.

There was one thing he could think of to do in order to get this whole thing over with quickly and quietly.

“Sarah,” he started, his voice making the whole table stop talking and listen. Her unfocused gaze cleared and landed on him, a question in her eyes. It was probably the first time he’d called her by her first name. “What do you need in order to be safe?”

She frowned, glanced at Glam. It was understood that she needed to get away from that woman, but it wasn’t as if he could do something about her. Sarah would have to do something about that herself.

“I am three million dollars in debt,” she stated.

“You mean, American dollars, correct?”

“Yes.”

“However, what do you need to be _safe_?” he repeated.

She scoffed. “Seriously?”

“No one is going to hand you 3.6 billion won. Do you even plan to work?”

“Of course I will work!”

“Why haven’t you begun working on your own?”

“Minimum wage isn’t enough to pay off that much debt,” Sarah slammed the palms of her hands on the table, stood and leaned forward, seeming insulted that she was even being asked about her financial matters. “And it certainly isn’t enough to raise a child!”

“Even if I pay for that child’s expenses to the tune of rent, food, clothing, education, and whatever else he'd need, the amount you’d get wouldn't even be half of what you need to pay off your debt. For example, let's presume he attends Seoul National University. Last time I checked, a generous estimate of tuition would be sixty-thousand American dollars for four years, let's just round up for good measure, a hundred-thousand dollars when you include room and board, books, fees, et cetera. That is not even four percent of your debt. Even if that money were to land in your pocket, it wouldn't put even the smallest dent in your debt. Hell, it wouldn't even pay the interest for a year."

Jumin lifted his chin to look up into her eyes, narrowing them imperceptibly, honing in on her to make sure she was listening.

"But let us be realistic; if that boy is mine he is certainly not going home with you. I will fight for custody and I guarantee I'll win. It's possible that you will be paying me child support."

"So you're admitting he's your child?" Glam interjected.

A deep breath held back the urge to snap at the woman. He simply ignored her instead, leaned into the table, holding Sarah's gaze with that hard stare. 

"Pretend for a moment your silly plan works. This farce will last only until tax season, and when you don't claim him as a dependent because you cannot, the government will pull the plug on your scheme. I wouldn't be surprised if you were put in prison for fraud and extortion. Of course that will not be the end of it, because I will come after you for every red cent you'd stolen from me, and I will make sure I get everything I am owed. If I cannot get it from you, then I will go after everyone in your family that I am able.”

Sarah opened her mouth, seemed to realize what he’d said, and plopped back in her seat. His eyes slid to Glam, whose mouth was gaping at him, wide eyed, as if she’d finally realized how badly she’d messed up. Satisfied with the extent of both of their scandalized expressions, he leaned back into his chair, relaxing into the upper hand a glimpse of his information showed to them.

“As you can likely tell, Sarah, I’m being very generous by offering you help; I see that you are being used and I dislike making a person’s situation worse than it is. I won't offer again, I promise you that you can’t afford to go to court.”

The dense silence only lasted for a second. Sarah didn’t look at Glam for even a moment.

“If I never see my sister again, I’ll do anything.”

 


End file.
